Last night was “girls’ night out.” I’m not crazy about the term. Seems to have the connotation we escaped from our lives as respectable women, tossed our panties out the window, and danced on tabletops in crowded bars till the wee hours of the morning. What we did in actuality was have dinner making it home just in time to catch the 10 o’clock news. Wild party animals.
There we sat at a booth giggling like teenagers. The full-time mother of twins, part-time graphic designer who seemed to still be anatomically correct even though she had nursed two babies at the same time. The skinny real estate agent who lives off drive-thru hamburgers and Mt. Dew, a cause for much jealousy on my part, headstrong, hardworking— most days from sun up to sun down and then some. The girl I hadn’t seen in years, brunette mother of two blonde-haired little dolls, tough as nails juggling babies and a blossoming career. The youngest of our group, a hairstylist who always looked like she stepped off some magazine cover turning heads everywhere she went. And me, the loud mouth accountant and chauffeur for the night.
We talked about old flames, the ones our Daddys warned us about but were oh, so fun. We talked about where certain body parts used to be and where they are now. We debated the pros and cons of Botox and swore to wait until our fifties to start shooting our wrinkles full of it. All of us except for one- but of course, I won’t name names. We talked and talked.
And we laughed. We laughed until we cried. We laughed until the group at the next table shot us annoyed glances. We laughed until the waitress politely asked if we needed anything else- the universal signal for “you’ve been here too long, it’s time to leave.” We didn’t like her anyway. Everything on her body was still in the right spots without the help of a wonder bra or Spanx.
I read a study that says laughing for 10-15 minutes burns 200 calories. If that’s the case, our girls’ night out was some of the best cardio I’ve had in quite some time.
