An Exercise Plan Gone Terribly Wrong!

Some years ago in my mid-20s, I ran with a bunch of girls who, once a month or so, would abandon our men and children, pile into my friend Linda's van and set out on excursions. These excursions included nights out at the Velvet Lounge where we tucked dollar bills into Sunshine the Stripper's thong, and trips to West Chester to ogle the Chippendales. ( I caught the cave man's fur briefs, but was forced to return them.) We also spent glorious summer nights in 800 level seats (colloquially known as "heaven") at Veterans Stadium to watch the Phillies (where the outline of the players' butts in their tight pants was just as much a draw as the game). These baseball games were followed by after-game drinks at McNally's Tavern. Some nights we just went to McNally's.

Yes, the ten or so of us were hormonally-motivated wives, mothers and, in my case, a working mom, the only one who couldn't take a nap the next day. At some point, we realized that we no longer fit into last year's jeans or our wedding dresses, and someone had the scathingly brilliant idea that we tone up by taking the adult ballet lessons offered for free at a local recreation center.

And so we showed up en masse one night in our tights and ballet slippers, for what we thought would be an easy work out (followed, of course, by a trip to McNally's). We first learned the five positions, and then were briefly introduced to adagio, pas de deux, allegro, arabesque, the barre, plie and demi-plie and pirouettes.

I felt so graceful, thinking, hey, this isn't so bad. Sure, it was pulling on muscles I didn't know I had or hadn't used in a decade. Sure, I stumbled a few times and twisted my ankle once, but I shook that off. I just kept thinking how impressed my family and friends would be at the recital in a few months, and by my toned-up figure.

My mistake was taking this initial ballet lesson the night before I was to start a new job.

The next morning, I attempted to reach over to silence the alarm clock, only to realize that my arm no longer achieved that movement! The groan that emerged from me awakened my future husband. "What's wrong?" he mumbled. "Nothing, go back to sleep." Then I tried to get out of bed. Oh-My-God! My body felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to it!

I managed to get my daughter up and out to school and I jaunted off to my new job, finding that, after a shower and moving around a bit, I didn't feel so stiff and sore. At work, I did a lot of sitting, but at some point I was directed to retrieve something from the files, only to discover that it was in the bottom drawer. Feeling confident that I had worked out all the ballet-related kinks, I "plie-ed" down to the floor. Hot, searing, tearing, wrenching pain ran through my thighs and calves as my muscles wreaked revenge and the ankle decided to let me know it was ticked off, too. The scream that emerged from me rivaled the sounds heard in birthing rooms and people came running. I was mortified to be discovered in a very ungraceful position on the floor, requiring the assistance of two two men to get up because there was no way I could do it on my own, even at only 10 pounds over my ideal weight.

When I explained to the boss what the problem was, he laughed, glad I hadn't injured myself on the job.

For about six more weeks, we all headed back to the Rec Center, but eventually decided that McNally's was a better initial destination anyway, and what did we care that we didn't fit in our wedding dresses -- like we were going to wear them again? (Well, Denise did. After her divorce, she showed up at a Halloween party in hers as Frankenstein's Bride.)

Gluttons for punishment, the next year we decided to give it another shot, but halfway through eight of them got pregnant, including the teacher! I can only assume their increased flexibility precipitated this.

I never did get to be in that recital.