Oh-Key-DOH!-Key

I use the word mental in this post several times. I know, it’s overkill, but half of my issues are all in my head. So it works. My apologies to any thesaurus lovers out there.

It all started because Tim had been playing with my combination lock I usually take to the YMCA.

I have been attending water exercising and water aerobics as faithfully as I can for the past 2 weeks. (Which equates to 5 times out of 10. Pretty good for me.) And the water aerobics have been really pushing me. I’m sore, but I keep going back. I love them. And I will go as often as I can.

But back to the lock. I couldn’t find my regular one for the locker. So I borrowed one from the Y. (which is free- you just give them your Y card and they hold that as collateral until you return the lock.) It was a regular Master Lock that comes with a key. Not a big deal.

But it soon became a big deal.

I got my locker all situated, put the borrowed lock on and secured my purse (which has nothing valuable in it, except for emergency tampons, which always seem to come out of the wrapper between one period to the next. What’s up with that?) and then had to figure out what to do with the key. Lots of times, the YMCA’s keys have one of those stretchy curly-Q bands on them so you can wear it on your wrist. This one didn’t. It was just a key. So I did what I always do with small stuff that I need to carry on my person.

I shoved the key into the bra like area of my swim suit.

I showered up, and headed out to water aerobics.

Admittedly, the teacher who leads the water aerobics is a “Jillian Michaels” in her own right. Not that she’s mean like Jillian… on the contrary. She’s smiley and nice. But she has a job to do, and that job is to whip my fat butt into shape. She is REALLY good at her job. She’s an Aqua Jillian.

So we start out by water walking, which is not tough, but you have to weave and bob around people because the class is packed. There are lots of the senior set that attend the class, because the water keeps them from wrecking their joints. I love listening to the older folks as they talk and discuss things- the weather, the pool temperature, the weather, the pool temperature- you hear the same topics coming up again and again.

There is also a group of teachers that attend 4 days a week. Some are retired, some aren’t- and I have to say they are hysterical. I like to gravitate towards them, but they are all tall gals, so they stay near the deep end. I am short with natural flotation devices, so I have to stay in the shallows or I don’t get a good workout. But any chance I have to listen in on their candid conversations, I do. Because I hear gems like this:

“I count carbs. I count them as they go right into my mouth.”

(While discussing the carb count of tortillas on wraps and suggesting using lettuce as the wrap device) “Lettuce was NEVER meant to be bread.”

“After a few months of this class, one day you will flex your arm and actually see a muscle!”

I’m telling you, these gals are a hoot.

So I enjoy the company, I enjoy the workout, and water aerobics are definitely my new exercise of choice.

Back to Aqua Jillian and the key.

We have gotten through our water walking, and we all grab our “noodles.” For those of you who don’t swim, this is a picture of noodles.

And we use the noodles for resistance training. Noodles- like hope and breasts- float and pop up to the surface. So we push them down in various fashions to work our arms, legs, and Aqua Jillian has even figured out a way to get sneaky sit ups with them. Ingenuous. Painful, but ingenuous.

We start our noodle workout and the water is splashing everywhere. Add to the splashing water that every time I go up and down, the under ridge of my boobs slap the water. They get knocked around pretty good during the workout. I am forever splashing myself in the face.

About half way through the workout, when my arms are good and worn out, it’s time to trade in the long noodles for the ones that are cut into foot long pieces. We do individual arm workouts with those. As I grab the short noodles, I did a quick pat of the chest area to make sure the key was still in place.

It was not.

In fact, I couldn’t locate the key.

Assuming it had fallen out while I was busy splashing around, I headed back to the place I had been before in the water and began doing a silent search with my foot. Feeling around on the bottom for the missing key, and scanning the water whenever 30 people weren’t splashing around, which makes the bottom hard to see.

With no key in sight (or on foot) I figured out that maybe the key had gone someplace else in my swim suit. Sometimes things fall to the under regions of my long gravity ravaged mammaries, and I find them later when I remove my bra. But the swim suit goes from my neck to my legs, so I figured it was somewhere in the torso region.

Meanwhile, Aqua Jillian is still working us with our short noodles. Bicep curls and chest flies and stuff like that. The whole time I am mentally scanning my body to feel if the key is in there.

By the end of the class my arms hurt, my abs hurt, and I felt thoroughly worked over. And the teacher group hangs out after and chit chat in the water while the old ladies shower. There are only 8 showers in the locker room, and 29 ladies in the class. So you stand a chance at getting a shower if you wait about 20 minutes.

So the teachers are talking, and I am half listening. Under the water, I look like I am rubbing my tummy and my breasts. BECAUSE I AM STILL LOOKING FOR MY KEY.

Finally I give up, and after scanning the pool floor one last time, I admit defeat and get out of the pool. Mentally I am preparing myself for walking home in nothing but a swimsuit and towel, and then realizing that I can even get into my house without my keys, which were in my purse in the locker that now had no key… well, it was going to be an interesting morning if nothing else.

As I am climbing up the ladder to get out and face my impending doom, something sharp and pointy sticks me right in the goody patch.

THE KEY!!!

I raced into the shower (because I can’t go digging in my crotchal region in public) and whipped off my swim suit. And there was the key, which had slid into the little 3 inch tan panty lining that all swimsuits have.

Giggling because this is the kind of stuff that only seems to happen to me, I work the key out of the lining, and decide that it would be kind of me to wash it off. I probably spent 10 minutes scrubbing the key in the shower. Because I am considerate.

I got dried off and dressed, and headed upstairs to the main desk. Sheepishly, I handed the girl my lock and key, and asked for my Y card back. At least it was better than when the boobs demagnetized my hotel key, but secretly humiliating none the less.

And as I walked to my crappy van, I laughed some more. Because I never thought that my feminine parts would hold the key to anything but unlocking Mother Nature’s wrath.

As soon as Tim came home from school, I had him locate my lock (which does NOT require a key) and put it in my workout bag.

So that was a KEY lesson learned!

(BTW, Weight is at 182. Getting better!)