Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never by Lancaster, Jen (e books free to read .txt) 📕

see that this is “A nonprofit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running.”

No sangria, then?

This charity isn’t what I thought, but I like the idea of a nonprofit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles. Empowering young women is never a bad idea.[It’s not as good an idea as a mobile soccer-mom sangria-delivery service, but still.] I’m all for Girls on the Run… except for the part that might include me running.

As my proficiency is less “running” and more “chugging along on the treadmill, sweating and swearing, at speeds no faster than 4.0 and for lengths no longer than a quarter of a mile,” I imagine I’m not the role model these tweens seek. What am I going to teach them? That it’s fine to take a cab for three blocks, particularly if cute shoes are involved? How to pick up the remote control with one’s feet in order to avoid bending? The key to mixing the perfect dirty martini?[Double the olive juice.]

Next!

On Saturday I can work at the Tour de Fat, which is “a celebration of bicycles and creative community.” The project entails pouring beer for three hours and then cleaning up after people who’ve been drinking said beer. The last time I had anything to do with serving cocktails was when I worked at a dive bar in college. The money was nice, but the downside of the job was the cleaning-up-after-people-who’d-been-drinking bit. Due to the abundance of biohazards, I had to poke head and arm holes in the contractor garbage bags I wore over my Dirty Dancing jean shorts and sorority T-shirt to avoid the backsplash that came from hosing down the bar.[Fact: every drunk person barfs up pineapple chunks.]

I’m going to say Strike One on the potential for being gross.

“The Tour de Fat festival celebrates Chicago’s growing biking community.”

That may be a problem because I loathe most of Chicago’s growing biking community. I’m infuriated at how bikers interpret traffic laws at will, plowing through stoplights, zipping in and out between cars, and riding on the sidewalk. Last week I almost nailed some mutton-chopped, forage-capped hipster who was completely oblivious to traffic due to his preoccupation not only with chatting on the phone but also smoking, thus leaving him with zero hands on the handlebars. When I honked he was all, “Bicycle rights, you fascist!” to which I replied, “Hey, Johnny Rebel—this car weighs six thousand pounds. Your ten-speed weighs twenty-five. If we crash I guarantee I’ll win.”

Strike two.

I check out the rest of the event description. The festival helps support environmental charities and having recently seen an incredibly guilt-inducing Discovery Channel special about polar bears, I’m on board. That is, until I stumble across a sentence that stops me dead in my tracks.

“Volunteers are encouraged to come ‘in costume.’”

That’s a problem because I have an irrational fear of adults wearing costumes.

By “fear” I mean “deeply seated hatred.”

I’m of the mind-set that if you’re too old to solicit candy from your neighbors, you’re too old to dress as a Ninja Turtle. I still have flashbacks from when I had a professional job and coworkers would show up for the day done up as superheroes and Raggedy Ann. They’d be all, “Hey, won’t this be fun when we see clients today?”

Um, you’re not coming to my meetings, Batman.

In case you’re wondering, I despised costumes even before I gained enough weight to limit my masquerade options to Saucy Pirate Wench or Viking-Horned Opera Singer. Thank you, no. And by the way? If you’ve ever gone to a Halloween party done up as a Sexy Nurse or Sexy Policewoman, please know that you appear to be one pizza delivery/cable repair away from starring in a porno.

Strike three, Tour de Fat, thanks for trying.

Let’s see… would I like to build houses in Munster, Indiana, for eight hours?

Not with a fresh manicure, I wouldn’t.

Do I want to staff the gates at one of Chicago’s ubiquitous summer fests? Yeah, I’m over forty, flighty, and fluffy—I’d say I’m not ideal bouncer material.

Shall I call BINGO numbers at a local church? Pfft, if those BINGO participants are as vicious as I’ve seen portrayed on television, I’d be better off trying to talk local gang members into voluntarily disarming.

What else… oh, looks like I could teach homeless men to use the Internet through an urban ministry charity. The notion of this intrigues me, but I can’t quite get past my cynicism that the second I teach these guys to do a Google search they’re not heading for ICanHasCheezburger.com. This is probably the root of all those Nigerian prince e-mail scams, too. Teach a man to fish and he might just take the opportunity to steal all your lobster pots.

Hey, here’s one about “keeping current.” I quickly scan the description and I see that participants would be tasked with having engaging conversations about current events. Hey, I like current events! I like conversations! I’m engaging! I bet if I did this one, I could practice some of the higher-culture skills I learned for My Fair Lazy.

I jot down the contact information in order to sign up. I wonder, would I be working with kids or seniors? If it’s seniors, I’d be fascinated by their take on how the world differs today than when they were young. I bet I’d hear a lot of sentences start with, “In my day…”[I’d award bonus points for any sentence that ended, “And stay off my lawn!”] That would be totally enriching; I’m sure I’d get more out of the conversation than they would.

If it’s kids, then I’d have the chance to be the elder statesman and I could talk about what life was like when calculators were the size of bricks and we got only three TV stations (unless you counted public TV) (which I didn’t) and if you wanted to send your friend a message, you needed a pen, a spiral notebook, and the ability to do an