Frodo Goes Bananarama

Jameson had successfully passed his COMP, a 4-hour comprehensive multiple choice exam over 2 years of medical school, and his Kaplan Exam, a grueling 8-hour exam that mirrored the types of questions he'd see on the USMLE Step 1. He was officially done with Basic Sciences. At any minute I expected to see Gandalf standing on a dock motioning for Ja to come aboard a white ship with billowing sails while something by Hans Zimmer played in the background. Instead, Grey and I had picked up a sweaty, wrinkled, and still buzzed Jameson from the Fort Myers airport following his final night on the island. Not quite as grand as I'd hoped, but we were back together.

After living separate lives for 2 months, during which Jameson had spent at least 16 hours a day studying sans fam and I'd been working 10 hour days/6days a week while Grey was summer schooling, there was a bit of an adjustment period. The grossest change was in scenery. We'd moved from a postage stamp sized apartment with lizards, enough ants to create our own farm, and no closet to a home that in comparison was palatial. Grey and I were used to it, Jameson was shell-shocked.

"Wife! We have 2 closets AND 2 sinks in our bathroom! Wait. I just said our bathroom. We have our own," Ja was muttering while walking through the house I'd found to rent during the next 2 year phase of medical school. He'd had a similar reaction at the grocery store when we'd spent less $30 on produce and a 12-pack of beer.

All weirdness aside from spending so much time apart, we were back in our own groove. Grey was in school, I was working, and Jameson had just started to officially study for the Step 1. We’d even joined LA Fitness, fondly referred to by Jameson as a ‘real gym’ with ‘working treadmills’ and no reports of neisseria meningitidis (the bacteria that can cause meningitis) from lack of ‘proper cleaning’. America was shaping up to be AB FAB after 2 years on a tiny island.

It was a typically crazy Monday for me. Alarm at 4:30AM, coffee, check e-mail, coffee, catch up on client number one, check e-mail, more coffee. During lunch Jameson and I’d decided to head to the gym. He was working legs and I’d be up on the treadmill. I was almost back to a normal running regimen following my foot break from last November. Almost.

Dropping my Nano in the cup holder on the treadmill, I hit the Start button and noticed that the girl on the treadmill to my right was wearing a cute pink FGCU tank top. I wanted it, if only to wear to the gym. Walking at a measly 2.0, I tapped the shoulder of the girl next to me pulling her out of the conversation she was having with the girl to her right.

“Hi, I was just wondering where you bought that tank. Super cute,” I asked while still snailing it on the treadmill.

“Oh! Thanks,” she answered with a mega-smile that screamed YOUTH (no, not bitter). “I got it at the bookstore, but sometimes you can find them at Publix. Do you want one for your daughter?”

I’m not sure what my face looked like, but it must have screamed murder because the chippie and her bestie both stopped their treadmills and left. Hadn’t I suffered enough with the youngsters at AUC? The comments about my flabby arms, being asked if I was expecting, and assumed to be the same age as a woman as old as my mother. Karma, what did I ever do to you?