Smells Like Teen Spinners

Most people in my spin class are 40+ and they're pretty serious spinners. There's also a teacher and a mom who are both about my age. They're serious too. Now when I say serious, I don't mean, like, "I'm-training-for-the-Tour-de-France" serious. But serious like "I'm-here-to-get-a-good-workout" serious. I mean, they still smile and have fun (except when we're climbing a really steep hill in which case they have these angry, pained looks on their faces).

But about once a week teenagers invade my class. I'm not against teenagers. They need to exercise too. Plus, they're usually the only ones who know the words to the songs. But they're far from serious about it. Here's what ALWAYS happens:

Two bubbly girls enter the class. They travel in pairs. I've never had one. Never had three. Always two.

"Hi! We're new!" they say. (Oh, really?)

They're always wearing the same thing: plastic jogging shorts that are too short and breathy for bike riding and a t-shirt that says something about their high school or college. Yesterday I had college girls so they had on sorority t-shirts.

I nicely set them up on their bikes and they giggle the whole time.

One of them asks a question in valley-girl-speak: "Um is this gonna be, like, really hard?"

Throughout the class they glance at each other and giggle. One makes fun of the other one and they giggle some more.

If a song comes on that they like, they look at each other and mouth the words (which I kinda like because I mouth the words too).

At the end they politely say, "Thank you! " I warn them that their butts might hurt for a few days and then they never return.

They all look so much alike and dress alike that last night when the sorority girls came in I thought they had been there before. But then I remembered that teens never come back so that would be impossible.

Also, last night as I was walking out of class I realized that I had forgotten to give the teens the butt warning. As I walked around the corner I saw two girls with plastic jogging shorts and pony tails. I said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you..." and realized these were two different girls! These girls had probably been to my class before too.

I think spinning is great exercise for the young and the old. So teens, get yourself some spandex shorts and come on back. Trust me, that freshman fifteen ain't coming off by itself.