“This is NASA technology; they developed this for astronauts,” the cute 20-something trainer boy tells me, a claim that’s guaranteed to make me skeptical. I never really liked TANG.

The jiggle machine is actually a Whole Body Vibration machine. It looks a lot like a stair machine with fewer moving parts. You stand on a platform and it jiggles. Very fast. That’s it. That’s the whole workout. You do this for 10 minutes and it’s supposed to be the equivalent of a one-hour workout. That’s what the fire-engine red brochure says, anyway. It also says, in bright yellow capital letters, “SHAKE YOUR WAY TO GOOD HEALTH!”

Why am I doing this? It’s a one-hour workout in 10 minutes, that’s why! I don’t have to change clothes. I don’t even have to change shoes. I just have to pay $3, step on the platform, hang on and jiggle.

The jiggle machines are in a tiny storefront near a hotel on the long walk through the tunnels from the parking garage to the office. My co-workers discovered it first – today I went along to see if it was worth $3. In downtown Houston, nothing costs $3 except a tall Chai latte and a ride on the jiggle machine. So I tried it, and I have to say, I feel like a had a 1-hour workout. Which is to say, sleepy and sore.

As I was standing there jiggling, I had a flashback of my mom going to Pat Walker’s Figure Salon back in the 1970s, and telling me how great it was to lie on a machine and have it do all the work for you. At the time, I may have sniggered or even made a smart-assed remark. As I have pointed out several times on this blog, paybacks are, in fact, hell, so I fully expect some backsass about this.

Yes, I have reached the age where passive exercise sounds like a great idea. Yesterday I asked Bob to take a new photo of me for LinkedIn — I wanted to show off my nerdy girl Tina Fey glasses, but they only magnified the crow’s feet and made my nose look like a schnozola. And now it’s come to this. Jiggling.

I have been shot 35 years into the future. I walk with a slight stoop. I knit. I watch musicals in the daytime. I am overly aware of bodily functions. I eat oatmeal for breakfast and soup for lunch. I drive 10 miles under the speed limit. Hanky panky is a fond memory.

These weeks of recovery are a preview of old age. The world is smaller, simpler and slower. Scary thing is, I don’t mind it that much. Because when I return to my own time (recovery is like aging in reverse, a la Benjamin Button) it’s back to commuting and meetings, fluorescent lights and high heels. I’ll miss the quiet of the house, the stillness of these days.

Bob wrote a blog post about a series of senior moments he endured last week, which you can read here. So in the interest of fairness, and because he’s threatening to blog about it if I don’t, I must tell you about mine.

Yesterday I was making a vat o’ potato salad for a dinner party. As I stirred all the ingredients together, I thought, “Huh, that didn’t take as long as I thought.” But as I stirred them a little longer, I realized the potatoes weren’t mushing together like they should. Then I realized, it’s because I forgot to cook them. So I had to dig through all the mayonnaise and other glop to extract each hard potato slice, one by one, then wash them off, then boil them.

So there you have it. You’re reading it here first — and so are the guests who ate it last night.

Sometimes there are advantages to listening to the bubble-gum hiphop music my kids like. The catchy tunes grind away in my head, running in a loop, providing a soundtrack to my life.

The latest one to get stuck up there is a little ditty called “Bulletproof.” Only I just realized that I’m not singing it right. The chorus is “This time baby, I’ll be bulletproof.” I was singing it “This time maybe I’ll be bulletproof.” Which goes to show you how a middle-aged mindset can color everything in your life.

Of course a young 20-something would sing “This time baby I’ll be bulletproof” with the certainty that only a 20-something could have. The song is about how she won’t let her loser boyfriend back into her life.

But the way I sing it, “This time, maybe, I’ll be bulletproof,” is a wish and a prayer. Also a recognition of uncertainty that comes with age. What I really want, what I pray for, is to be bulletproof. Not from the stings of a bad boyfriend, but from all the things that could lay me low. I want protection for me and mine. Cover us all with bulletproof skin.