Well, I am a writer, and it’s a well-known fact that we writers never break a sweat if it means we have to exercise. Most of my days, when I am not searching for an excuse to procrastinate, are spent at a computer keyboard. I have never been into physical exercise unless you count the up and down movement of my mouth while talking or eating, most often in tandem.

Although at different times in my life I have felt the need to ‘get with the program,’ I can honestly say I don’t have those urges anymore. I no longer donate money to health clubs.

The last time I was in a gym, it took less than five minutes for me to take in all the young, cavorting members and became conscious of my state of under-dress. I was wearing a timeworn University of South Carolina T-shirt, circa 1962, the year I would have graduated had I not wasted all my time collecting fraternity pins.

The gym shorts I wore that day had once belonged to Babe, which is to say that either he used to be much smaller or I am now much larger, so let’s not go there.

I cringed the minute I stepped inside that oversized den of stinky sweat and throbbing tendons and saw the throng of well-turned-out women dressed in gymnastically correct leotards and coordinated thongs. At that very moment, a sudden craving for serious chocolate dropped down on top of me as if it came straight from God.

I high-tailed it out of there quick as you please and went straight down to Sweet Mama’s Bakery where she doesn’t give a hoot how I’m dressed. I consoled myself with the thought that If God had intended me to bend over, I’d be growing diamonds in my garden instead of pansies.

That same night, Babe, my good humored husband, lifted the lid on a pan of Southern fried chicken I was cooking.

“Hell-ooo,” he exclaimed, “I’m gonna take a wild guess that another health club just bit the dust!” The dirty look I gave him replaced the less than ladylike digit gesture I gave him in my mind.

Babe is pretty good about supporting my diets and infrequent urges to eat nothing but cabbage and kale for days on end. He claims to like kale even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is. On our tenth anniversary, the last of the big-time spenders gave me a new bicycle instead of the ten days at Canyon Ranch for which I had shamelessly hinted. What a guy.

It is true that I have joined many health clubs in the past, always thinking I’ll regain some resemblance to the size-eight I once was. A friend of mine once joined a gym following a New Year’s Resolution, and being a humorist of some note, the first question he asked was, “Has anybody ever died in this place?”

The trainer with a mouth full of Chicklet teeth assigned to give him the nickel tour didn’t bat an eyelash. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in any other place,” she quipped.

His question and her response gave me pause. What was this silly notion of mine all about anyway? Why had I ever heeded my nagging inner voice when it screamed, ‘No pain, no gain.’ Was it about staying healthy or was I just grasping at straws hoping to reclaim a teeny little portion of my youth? At my age, there are only teeny little portions left.

When I am even older and my bones have turned so brittle that they clack like a bad-fitting set of false teeth, and my hair has turned white and wiry and falls out in clumps, I might experience some remorse. I may regret having spent so much of my life in front of a computer keyboard when I could have been straddling a stationary bike.

But until that day, I’ll ride my little old lady’s bike and keep working my jaws up and down and pray for a trickle down result. The bad news is it ain't gonna restore my youth. But the good news is I don’t need to wear fashionable workout clothes, especially in my neighborhood.