This column first appeared in print in October 2007.

Chick-ness is in the eye of the beholder, right?

That’s all I can say in answer to the deluge (okay, the trickle) of readers who want to know one thing above all else:

“How old are ya, Reality Chick?”

Of course, that’s not really all I can say and I’ll prove that in this column, which, once published, will serve a more important function, by way of the fact that I’m going to plaster it across my forehead in answer to the men, old and young, who all pester me with that same question within an average of 15 minutes (I’ve clocked it) after meeting me.

At least my readers give a cleverly complimentary reason for wanting to know my age. Struck, they say, with the disparity between the shiny-eyed column photo, which airbrushed as it is, makes me look, oh, at least, several days younger than I actually am – and the words in print, emanating from a surely wizened brain, that make me sound positively crone-like in comparison.

“How is it,” they slyly inquire, “that someone so young can be so smart?”

Whereas, the men who ask me out? Brutes, nearly all. I’ve barely met a man in this town, whether 34 or 54, who hasn’t blurted out nearly as soon as the drinks are ordered, “So, just how old are you?”

And unlike my politely curious readers, the men who take me out are asking for one reason and one reason only:

To determine my bed-ability.

Oh, they say they ask because I look younger than I am, and that I should take it as a compliment, yada, yada, yada. But really, younger guys want to know where I fall on the child-bearing continuum, and older guys just want to know if I’m young enough to make them feel young too.

I can’t help but take serious umbrage at the question of my bed-ability. I am, I insist, eminently bed-able.

Just let me take my Geritol first.

Hmmmm. I thought that leaving the hyper-young college town of Beantown, I’d come to Sarasota and be considered a relative filly. Not so.

I was unprepared for the massive number of near-senior stallions running around Sarasota’s pasteurized paddocks, feeling their (Viagra-infused?) oats every bit as much as they did when they were twenty-something colts running legitimately amok. These men want fillies, dammit, not mares, and definitely not old nags like yours truly.

Neigh. Neigh.

But I digress. Or I’m just losing my train of thought. Which happens, not infrequently, to chicks on the verge of hen-ness.

So in response to all the reader inquiries, let me say that while I’m certainly no longer a chick by any “hot chick on a Harley” standards — I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few decent Chick years left before they cart me off to the old-hen house.

And for those men (you know who you are) still obsessed with determining precisely whether I’m still a chick or long-since a hen, let me just say this: whether you perceive me as a chick in hen’s clothing or a hen in chick’s clothing, my Reality doesn’t change.

But maybe yours should.