Getting Back on the Horse

I wasn't sure I was ready to dust off my Pogo Stick and jump rope.  After all, I had just had Rotator Cuff surgery in December.

But I listed that skill on my audition sheet for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  If I get cast it will undoubtedly be because of my Pogo Stick prowess.

Certainly not because of my vocals.

On top of that I had to open my big fat mouth to Keela.  Now, apparently, I'm performing at a United Way talent show at work.

I wasn't even sure I could still do it.  My friend George told me that if I 'used to could' jump rope on a Pogo Stick', I probably could still do it.

That's easy for him to say.

I told Dave about my conundrum and he flat out told me that I was getting too old for such nonsense.

"What?"  I was appalled and insulted.  "I used to be really good at it."

George's voice echoed in my head.  I used to could jump rope on a Pogo Stick.  

What if my jump rope Pogo Sticking days were over?

There was only one way to tell.  I grabbed my Pogo Stick from the closet and headed through the kitchen.  

"What if you get hurt?" Dave asked.

"What could possibly happen?" I responded.  I was really starting to get annoyed with him. I opened the back door, Pogo Stick in hand, ready to take the leap.

Seriously.  How could I get hurt jump roping on a Pogo Stick?  I just had to make sure I maintained sufficient height so the jump rope didn't catch on the bottom of the Pogo Stick.

Because, of course, if that happened, the jump rope would pull the Pogo Stick backward, which would launch me forward.  And cause me to land on my face.  On the driveway.  Re-injuring my shoulder.  Or breaking my wrist.   Or my neck.  And I'd have to call to Dave for help.

"Do you have your button?"  Dave hollered to me.

I reopened the door.  "What????"

"Your I've fallen and I can't get up button....do you have it?"

"You are hysterical.  Not."  I slammed the door.

I looked at my Pogo Stick.  It had never let me down.  Not when I was performing at that Gong show in the '80s.  Not when I did my shtick at Kimmy's Kindergarten class in 1993.  And certainly not in front of sold-out audiences at 15 damn performances of Gypsy seven years ago.

I picked up my jump rope and rested it on my shoulders.  I climbed aboard my trusty Pogo Stick and began to hop.  Higher and higher.  I used my knees to hold the Pogo Stick upright, grabbed the jump rope and began to swing it.

One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five.

That's enough.

I dismounted and parked my Pogo Stick, resting the jump rope over the handle. 

I limped into the house screaming, "DAVE!!!!  HELP!  I NEED ICE!  AND BAND AIDS.  LOTS OF THEM."

Dave raised his eyebrow.  

 "And wine."  

I had something to celebrate.

Somersaulting on the Yellow Brick Road

Why did the Scarecrow win the Nobel prize?

He was outstanding in his field.

And, for the record, that field was NOT gymnastics. 

And, THIS Scarecrow cannot do a somersault onto the stage.  Which is what the director wants her to do.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I used to be quite gifted at somersaults.  Forwards. Backwards. Sidewards.  Any direction!  In fact, I was a stinkin' somersault prodigy!

But that was decades ago.  

And the stage is about as soft as a slab of concrete.  If I do a somersault on that stage I really will have brain damage.

I’m sure I could do it if I trained hard enough.  And if the stage was covered with a feather bed.  And a stand-by ambulance was  parked outside the theater.

Tiffany, of course, thinks this somersault will be a slam-dunk for me.  She reminds me that I jump roped on a pogo stick in Gypsy a few years back.   

 
But I wasn’t wearing a Scarecrow hat!

The thing is, I have to find a nimble, gymnasticky way to get from the corn field to the stage, which doesn’t involve crippling my neck in front of a live audience.

I really don't want to upstage Dorothy, but I have no choice.

I’ll have to do my back handspring.

Going for the Spray Tan

I decided to go for it. I called Sun Your Buns to set up an appointment.

      " I'm a spray tan virgin. Is there anything I need to do to prepare?"

      "Take a shower before coming and exfoliate your skin."

I start every morning with an SAT question of the day e-mailed to me. I thought my vocabulary was pretty darn good. But exfoliate? What the heck does that mean? I didn't want to sound stupid, and thought I might be able to figure it out if she used it in a sentence.

      "So, you say I have to exfoliate my skin, right?"

      "Right. Any other questions?"

That didn't help. Better be direct. 

      "Exactly how do you exfoliate your skin?"

For those of you who didn't know, exfoliating is basically scrubbing dead cells off your skin. So I exfoliated my skin.

It made me look even whiter. Not off to a good start.

I talked my co-stripper Tiffany into going with me to the tanning place for moral support. We walked in and I told the girl at the counter (let's call her "Suzie") that I wanted to look like Tiffany. She informed me that they do spray tans, not plastic surgery.

Very funny.

When I explained to her that we were playing strippers in Gypsy and I wanted shed my Boo Radley look, Suzie was so excited that she upgraded me from a Mystic Tan to a spray tan. To use a car wash metaphor, instead of driving though the tanning spray, I would have my body detailed.

I was given the choice of wearing no clothes or a disposable bra and panties. Let's just say that getting my body detailed would require Suzie looking at my body's details, so I opted for the disposable bra and panties.

There have been times in my life when I felt I'd lost my dignity, most of which involved various medical procedures (e.g. giving birth, having a mammogram, etc.) Well, when I left the dressing room in my paper bra and Tarzan-like thong on my lily white skin, wearing a plastic shower cap on my head I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And my dignity sunk to an all-time low.

Tiffany tried to talk me into taking a picture for the blog, but I decided to protect my readers. Here's the g-rated version:

And then Suzie turned on the fire hose of tanning fluid and I turned in a slow circle, not unlike a rotisserie chicken at Food Lion. After several minutes of spray I was ready for the dry cycle. She handed me a leaf blower and before you know it my spray tan extravaganza was over.

When I walked out of the spray tan booth I looked exactly like Tiffany. Well, not really. But my skin was the same color.

And when I walked on stage last night I thought I heard a comment from the orchestra pit:

"So where'd they get that hot under-study for the albino stripper?"