Happiness is red curtains and killer shoes

I’ve never wanted to be anyone but me.

Sure, I’ve wished I were beautiful, thin and rich, but if I had to trade places with someone else to be those things, I’d rather be what I am — not beautiful, not thin and not rich.

There are, however, some traits I wish I had that I have seen in other people. I don’t want to be them, understand; I just want to have, for example, characteristics strikingly similar to theirs.

It has nothing to do with looks. It has everything to do with health, vitality and agility.

A couple of women I keep seeing in television commercials  are maddeningly all of the above.

In one commercial, one of the women enters a hotel room, shucks her jacket, then sort of drifts toward the long, red curtains that frame a window and starts swinging on them. She does the splits while hanging onto them. She does the splits upside-down while hanging onto them. And apparently, it’s as natural for her as breathing.

OK, stop right there. First of all, if I walked into that hotel room, the first thing I’d do is pick up the phone and call the desk clerk. Any hotel room with a ceiling so high that it has curtains long enough to swing on could not possibly be my room. I would be lucky if my room had curtains.

Now, saying — just saying — that the room was mine, there would be no swinging. I couldn’t get that far off the floor. I could stand on a chair, hug the curtains and jump, maybe, but swing? I don’t think so.

If I tried doing such things, though, there is a good possibility I could wind up doing upside-down splits, and there I would hang, sobbing, until it was time for housekeeping to come in.

The second woman, in another commercial, takes it to a new level and beyond. She comes into the room, tosses an apple into the air, jumps onto a table, catches the apple with her foot, and, while holding her body extended outward from the table by one arm, she proceeds to do things with that apple that would make Granny Smith blush. She tosses it into the air, rolls it around, catches it with her feet.

Then she takes a bite out of it.

The best part of all is that she does it wearing some really killer shoes.

Now, if I wore them, they really would be killer shoes. The heels are open circles, and even if I were 20 years old and weighed 90 pounds, I’d have two broken ankles quicker than you could say “fierce.”

But they sure do look good.

As I said before, though, I wouldn’t want to really be those women, I would just like to have some of their agility and vitality.

In fact, just being able to get around the way I did when I was 30 would be splendid. (That’s when I thought I was old and really, really fat. I should be so old and fat again.)

Actually, I’d like to be able to get around as well as some 90-year-olds I’ve met.

Especially the ones who can still wear killer shoes.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.