Dancing On Bars....And Acting Your Age

Just yesterday I lived in Brooklyn and was wearing motorcycle boots, a black leather jacket and a long flowery skirt. I was doing shots and dancing on bars in downtown NYC. And now, suddenly I am sitting in a nursing home wearing a bib. What happened?

Alright. I am not sitting in a nursing home. That bit was what we in the business call "artistic license", or "alternative facts" , or a lie. What is true is that many years ago I asked my gentle little son, who was the tender age of six, if he would take care of Mommy when Mommy was old. He sweetly reassured me with his soft little boy voice that he would “put me the hospital” when I got old. While I was fishing for a different response, I should have known better. Even as a child, he was nothing if not practical and efficient. He knew he would have a life to lead. He would be busy doing grown up things, and would not have time to deal with an annoying elderly parent wearing a bib.

Now at 18, he is probably ready to stick me in a hospital just so I will stop interrupting Gotham to ask him “Wait, what is happening? And, “Who is that character? Was she on last week? Didn’t that guy already die?” while he is trying to watch it in peace, because I was not paying attention to the last episode or any episode--but I will not give him the peace he craves. I need a few more years before I am ready to get stuck in the hospital. I am not ready to go sit in a corner and peek outside the curtains, hiding timidly from the Grim Reaper. Not yet. In fact, I want to see if there are a few other bar dancing opportunities out there for me. Only after I have exhausted all those opportunities will I retire quietly to a corner to play Bingo and scratch out that awful Sheila’s eyes for cheating (yet again), and for spreading that rumor about me which is filthy and untrue.

The other day I read in some random blog (so it must be true) that one’s 50s are the new 30s, one’s 40s are the new 20s and one’s 30s are the new 10s! Since I am technically now in my early 30s, and therefore barely a grown up, I should be able to dance on any damn bar I please without feeling embarrassed.

But something unpleasant seems to have intervened between me and bar counters. Is it the passage of time, family, adult responsibilities? Even though I have only reached the young age of new 30 (ok 31), I have mysteriously acquired two nearly adult children and a mortgage and college payments and the ongoing need to support and care for other humans, plus an animal that thinks he is a human.

This turn of events is as annoying as it is unexpected. I have not even reached full adulthood! I could not have already accomplished all this adulting at such a young age. It’s preposterous. You must have me mistaken for that awful Sheila.

So I am thinking that I would like a do over that more closely matches my age.

I am going back in my time capsule to my 20s (which are the new 1s). I will first experience being born and then zip ahead to an appropriate bar dancing age where I will dance unencumbered and with abandon.

I will have wild hair.

I will pine for Kurt Cobain.

I will flirt with the bartender.

I will run around the Village, sort of drunkish, with my best mate. We will shoot people with her potato gun (this is a thing that really happened in an era when it was a funny and not terrifying thing to be accosted by two young women wielding a potato gun).

If we tried this today we would be arrested, because, alas, Manhattan is not open carry for potato guns anymore.

Most importantly I will climb on top of a bar and stomp around with my friends. No one will be annoyed by this, because it is appropriate behavior late at night in bars. In fact, the bartender will help us climb up, and the other patrons will stomp along with us, raising their pints and sloshing them around. No one will really have any understanding of what the hell is going on.

Then we will stumble around with potato guns in hand, barging into clubs and careening about gleefully as if we did not know that the next day we would be returned to the nursing home to wheel ourselves about in our our Fred Flintstone mobility chairs while the aides chase us down the hall and yell at us to come back for our sponge baths.

No! I am just getting my second wind, and I will be damned if at the youthful age of new 31 I am going to miss out on any more bar dancing before that awful day arrives when my devoted son sticks me in the hospital, pats me on the head, gives me a bib that says “Number One Mom” and hightails the hell out of there to enjoy his new 20s.

I still have my own hips and knees and several of my faculties. I will not be deterred or shamed into good behavior.

If any of you are entering your new 30s through new 100s please join me. It is important to stay in shape so when the dreaded day comes and the aides are chasing you down the hall screaming at you to "get back here and eat your jello!” you can expertly maneuver your chair out the back exit and make a break for the nearest bar.

My advice to all aspiring bar dancers out there is this: Keep your motorcycle boots on and remain alert. Do not leave the stage until you get the cane. Remember that you only get to be 31 twice. Finally, the only thing standing between you and getting shoved into the hospital by that loyal son of yours is your inability to hear over background noise. Turn off your hearing aid and run. No one gets to tell you how to enjoy your new 30s!