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" &amp;quot;Are you sure?&amp;quot; a young high school teacher from Long Island asked. The concern on her face was the kind she might give her grandmother who&amp;#039;s just offered to walk to the car alone on an icy driveway. &amp;quot;I can sit back there,&amp;quot; she added. In other words: You are too old to sit cross-legged, peering out the back window like a Golden Retriever or the social chairman of a fraternity house during Rush Week.   But I&amp;#039;d already found my spot in the way back, and frankly, it was more roomy than the crowded seats. I know, it wasn&amp;#039;t safe. But only the driver and my husband, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, could fasten their seatbelts. Anyhow, in de islands, mon, tings are more laid bok. You sit wherever you can.   &amp;quot;In my parents&amp;#039; generation, they&amp;#039;d call that a rumble seat,&amp;quot; a retiree offered before he and the teacher forgot all about me and started complaining about today&amp;#039;s teens.    &amp;quot;They aren&amp;#039;t motivated to work,&amp;quot; the teacher said. I wanted to interject that that&amp;#039;s exactly what grown-ups had said about my generation \u2013 Generation X, who, as teens, were tagged by one prominent educator as a &amp;quot;rising tide of mediocrity.&amp;quot;    But it was hard to get their attention from the way back. Besides, I was a 41-year-old woman in a tankini and flip-flops sitting on the floor of a van full of tourists as it hopped over speed bumps toward the hotel. Perhaps some of that rising tide was getting sand all over the floor.   I waited until everyone else got out of the van before I attempted to scale the wheel well again and step onto the walkway of our hotel. There, I put back on my wide-brimmed sun hat \u2013 the one that makes me look like a celebrity hiding from paparazzi (or at least like a middle-aged woman) \u2013 and headed to the beach-side Cabana Bar for lunch, where I tried to act my age.    Later, I saw the teacher and her husband, all full of youthful energy, eyeing up the windsurfing lessons. I closed my book and my eyes and, tired from our snorkeling trip, fell fast asleep \u2013 like the middle-aged woman that I am. Finally, someone else would have to sit in the way back.      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a22269/middle-aged-woman-vacation/>