I started a new workout class last week. Thankfully, I'm joined in this exercise in pain by my good friend Lydia and my neighbor Nikki. It makes it bearable, just knowing I get to go see them, instead of just going to be judged by a bunch of more fit, more agile, better people than me in a gym above the Senior Center twice a week.

So we had our first class on Monday, like I said. I didn't check the location because Lydia did, and she informed me it was at the Senior Center, which was fine with me. We hoped all the participants would be much older than us, and that way the playing field would be leveled because of our lack of fitness.

On my way there, I passed a big wreck. It was raining, and I saw raincoat-clad fire and ambulance types pulling people from cars onto stretchers. It was not a good omen. I called Lydia to tell her I might be late because the wreck held me up, and she said she was at the place and couldn't find her way in. All the doors were locked. Rut-roh.

So I popped into problem solving mode and went over to the closest community center and asked them WHAT THE HECK. Lydia and I agreed that IT IS HARD ENOUGH to drag out to work out, let alone in the rain, and a wreck, and now we can't even get in the door?

They sent me back to the Senior Center with instructions to look for a stairway. Lydia and I rounded the building three times in the rain. Both of us were drenched and both of us on the verge of giving up, but finally I spied the secret stairway and we schlepped up the slick stairs in the rain, sure that one or both of us was going to break a hip on the way in.

We were 20 minutes late. Not that it mattered - we still got our patooties kicked.

It was all women in the group, although nowhere in the materials did it say "Women Only." The teacher was shouting instructions to the women in the room, who were RUNNING. Seriously, they were doing line drills a la basketball camp.

Our feet were wet, and we feared for our lives on the gym floor. So we spent ten minutes drying the bottom of our shoes, and then we were instructed to get in there and RUN WITH THEM. Oookay! So much for warming up!

By this time I was laughing so hard at our many foibles and how INEPT we are, I got myself a nice side-ache to go along with everything. The women in the class ranged, I'm guessing, from upper twenties to mid-sixties, and every one of them, EVERY. LAST. ONE. was in far better shape than me.

Lydia and Nikki and I tried our best to keep up, but mostly we stayed in the back and complained about our body parts hurting. Apparently, I need some better undergarments and shoes if I'm going to keep this up.

We were the group that went left when everyone else went right. We are the ones who barely remember how to jump rope. We laid on the floor like beached whales while the rest of the women planked their little hearts out.

And this is the story of my life.

I am always at The Bad Table. I am always the one in the back making juvenile jokes, being irreverant, and generally screwing things up. I am not sure why I am this way. I can't blame my mother. She's reverent about most everything. And I can't blame my husband because this all seems to happen when he's not around.

It's just me. And I attract birds of a feather.

But you know what? That's okay. Tonight I have class again, and maybe I'll be a little better at the moves. I now know how to get in the door. I'm already miles ahead of where I was last time. And I think the lesson here is certainly clear: just because you aren't the best, the fittest, the valedictorian of the workout class, doesn't mean you shouldn't go. And just because it's working out doesn't mean it can't be fun, or social, or both. Even if I have to do "girl" push-ups, it's better than no push-ups at all.

I bought myself some new workout pants, and I look forward to honing my jump rope skills tonight. But I still think I'll stay in the back, and try to lessen the spectacle that is my uncoordinated self.