I have a friend, a male friend, who every time he sees me greets me with an exuberant, "Here's the old lady from hell." Now, I truly have no idea why he calls me that and even repeated ribbings have not made him stop. I told him the other day that after every encounter with him I feel depressed and well, old. Who wants to be the old lady from hell? I wondered if he calls his wife that at home and he just laughed it off, "She would kick my ass!" Well, hello?! So why am I the old lady then? I thought the term old lady implied wife, girlfriend or mistress - of which I am neither to this man.

Hey, when I was young I thought it was kind of cool to be someone's old lady. Then again, I was running with the biker crowd at the time and the women were all old ladies. It was just a term of endearment as I suppose.

Now, I'm really not so crazy about people using any sort of terms of endearment on me that sounds negative. Chick and broad is another one of my pet peeves. I am neither a chicken nor a, well, hell, what's a broad anyway?

I have a tough enough time coming to terms with being in my 40's, do I need to reminded of that? I think not. I prefer to be just a girl. Or if you want to be respectful, you can just call me lady - just leave the old part out of it.