My Favorite Story

We got home from our weekend excursion at bedtime last night. Thanks to your creative travel tips, the 15-hour drive was relatively painless. It did take us 17 days to get through Iowa, but no DVD or Color Wonder marker can help that.

Unless you’re sniffing the Color Wonders. In which case Iowa becomes a land of enchantment and glowing stars.

Since I have approximately 1,368 pictures to sift through before I can share a few memorable family wedding moments, I decided I would take this opportunity to tell you my new Favorite Story – the story I would tell you right away if we sat down together at Starbucks.

My youngest brother, Unca Jon, is in his mid-20s and has one of the driest senses of humor known to man. He’s like a human Cabernet. Only he isn’t aged in an oak barrel.

(And he’s single. And adorable. Sorry. Had to throw in that shameless plug. Here he is with Connor last Thanksgiving.)

He’s also the only relative brave enough to live in the same state with the Love Well family. So we get to see him often and hear about his single, mid-20s adventures.

Recently, Jon joined a small gym around the corner from his new residence. As he was filling out the required paperwork, the gym owner – a woman in her mid-30s – invited him to try out The Core training class she teaches on Monday nights.

She also let drop the fact that no man had ever come to the class more than once, presumably because they were wimpy girly men who couldn’t handle a real workout.

Jon, aware of the challenge to his manhood, agreed to stop by the next Monday night to see what he could manage.

So the next Monday came. Jon went to the class. Not only was he the only male in attendance, but he was the only person under 35.

Being a gutsy sort, he stayed anyway.

As you might imagine, he endured a good-natured ribbing the entire class. The instructor gave him a hard time from the stage, the other women constantly wondered aloud if he would survive.

Near the end of the class, Jon decided a little pay back was in order. He wanted to say, “Wow, I didn’t realize this was a Lamaze class,” a reference to the technical breathing required while working the core muscles.

Instead, he said, “Wow, I didn’t realize this was a menopause class.”

Whoops.

The whole room went quiet for about three seconds, then there was a collective gasp and groan. I believe the instructor said something like, “We know we’ve been giving you a hard time, Jon, but that’s really hitting below the belt.”

Funnier still? He didn’t immediately realize his error. By the time he figured out what he’d really said versus what he’d meant to say, it was too late. The class had turned against him. He barely made it out of there alive. There were gangs of middle-aged women waiting to take him down in the hallway on the way to his car.

To his credit, he returned to the class the following Monday to try and explain his “foot in the mouth” moment. He estimates about half of the woman believed him.

And from now on, I believe he’s going to work out his core muscles in the safety of his own home.

P.S. Thanks to Jon for agreeing to let me blog this story. (Not that he had any choice in the matter, really. But it sounds better that way.)