Susan Alexander - The Rant

Susan’s Rant – Week of October 1st

The Enemy

Right off the airplane in Philadelphia coming back from San Francisco, my loving devoted mother looks at me and greets me.

“Mommy told you, RICE is your ENEMY. Stay away from rice, rice noodles and Rice-A-Roni.” My mother said and her boot camp program begins.

Let me set the record straight that rice is not my enemy. I don’t want to offend rice eaters and I have nothing personal against rice. In fact, I grew up with rice before rice became trendy. Instead of bread at dinner, we would have rice. Rice is still pretty good for about two days but then on the third day my mother would come up with an ancient Korean recipe to not waste the rice. She would make fried rice with chopped up fried eggs and Spam/ hotdogs. Rice itself is not bad for you; it’s just the company it keeps.

I told some of friends that my mother was going to start me on a long-overdue diet and exercise boot cam and they thought she was going to starve me.

“Look, a 110 pound, 60 year old Asian woman is not going to keep me away from food. I will find food or food will find me.” I said.

Mommy boot camp was quite relaxing and I got to do the exercises I enjoy like swimming, walking and this new sick cross country/stair master machine which burns up about one Egg McMuffin. During the boot camp, the weather was still very warm and I was able to use my mother’s condo community pool. Basically, it’s me and a couple of senior citizens. Very much like the movie Cocoon.

For a couple of weeks, I was able to swim and soak up some skin cancer. One of the Cocoon guys was always there the same time in the afternoon as I was. So we started chatting. He used to own a gym and was a personal trainer and still in good shape with a full set of blond hair. My nickname for him was ‘Jack Lalane.’ Jack was telling me about his kids, grandkids and lady friend. He seemed like a very charming guy. Then it got weird. He asked me what is the oldest age I would date and that age doesn’t matter. Then he told me he was really good at foreplay and cuddling but the main sex act would be short.

Okay, that was just too much information. I told him I was flattered but I don’t date guys that are more than 10 years older/younger than me. What I really was thinking,

I don’t want to have a dinner date at 4 p.m. and then have to change your adult diapers.

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