the man mobile

Every Friday, I drive a big white Suburban loaded with students out to an archaeological site where I then torture the students by making them MAP things and TAKE NOTES and DO STUFF. It's horrible. I'm simply a beast.

For some reason, my vehicle has become the Man Mobile. So, every morning, the girls make a beeline for the Bronco and spend the long ride up French-braiding each other's hair and talking about flowers and ponies and possibly having giggly pillow fights in their sports bras, while the boys, unshaven and smelling of alcohol, lumber aggressively into the Suburban, arguing about who gets shotgun and repeating lines from King of the Hill and using the f-word as often as possible while throwing things out the windows at homeless people and grocery-toting old women.

I wasn't too bothered by this behavior initially. After all, I worked with nearly all-male archaeology crews for awhile back in the day. I learned to smile, shake my head, and make disparaging comments about their overall lack of hygiene. Boys LOVE it when you tell them this for some reason. You can say, "Which one of you is making this car smell so weird?" and they'll all blush and giggle and cuss happily at you like they're five years old and you just tickled them under the chin and gave them a raspado.

But THEN it came out that 32-year-old females are "ladies".

That makes me a "lady."

In other words, I'm OLD.

Since "lady" has come out into the open, my oldness has became fair game. Instead of discussing Mexican moonshine and hookers, we talk about how I was apparently a kid in, like, the FORTIES. I like The Police and Fleetwood Mac, for god's sake. Which obviously makes me OLD. Although there was a little debate, since I apparently share these likes with the 21-year-old mohawked, chain-wearing, chain-smoking kid who lurks in the back seat and sometimes brings up politics (which always freaks me out). So maybe I'm not old. Maybe I'm just retro. In any case, I'm way not cool.

So 32 is not the New 22 after all. It's the New 47, and I'm headed straight to Squaresville, goldurnit.

But I'm still the driver, and if you don't start showering on a regular basis, I am turning the Man Mobile around RIGHT NOW, and we are listening to Salt 'N Pepa on the Mega Oldies station ALL the way home. I mean it.