How Our Heroine Accidentally Joined an Older Women Feminist Book Group

When we last left her, our flummoxed heroine was eating a Swiss chocolate bar and struggling to find her niche in her Second City (or seventh, but who's counting?)

She biked to work. She biked back. Her thighs, which once felt as if they were simmering in a large cauldron of bubonic plague and broken glass during these daily rides, were taut. They no longer ached when she saw a bike. They no longer jiggled when she jumped rope. On some level, this was upsetting to her. It was like losing a good friend, after the friend was there during thick and thin (but mainly thick.) It was like distancing herself, somewhat willingly, from a decent-sized portion of her body mass.

(She would be upset, after all, to lose a finger or toe. She saw losing her jiggly thighs as no different, except -- she supposed -- in swimwear, where a missing toe doesn't require additional coverup garments.)

(If she somehow were to survive a South American plane crash with members of her record-breaking national soccer team, they might not choose to eat her first.)

One of her first tasks upon arriving in Chicago some time ago was to find and summarily inspect her independent neighborhood bookstore, Women and Children First. Having once been a child, our heroine felt fairly comfortable entering the establishment (And besides, she was sporting -- not the right word? -- the various appendages necessarily to qualify as a member of the fairer sex.)

Upon entering, she found, next to the latest edition of Our Bodies Ourselves, lists of book clubs, and seeing one that met on the night she was free (Tuesdays), she promptly bought the book and joined.

When she showed up, she figured the people there were old because old people always arrive early (see Fiorenzo et al. 1999) She was wrong. She actually joined a book group where everyone was old.

The End.