Both Sides Now

ESP:  EXERCISE STRESS POINTS

I have devised a point system similar to that scale used to tell when a person has too much stress in his or her life.  My scale is designed to warn you when you have signed up for an exercise class that is too difficult for you.

On the life stress scale, a marriage, divorce, new baby or death in the family might equal 100 points. On my exercise stress point scale, you are assigned Exercise Stress Points (ESP) to signal when you are in a world of hurt.

For openers, you can always tell you’re in serious trouble if you are the only one who looks like they really need the class and are the only one not wearing leg warmers. After that, the scale is as follows:

10 ESP (exercise stress points):  Class assembles. Instructor leads vigorous calisthenics for a full twenty minutes.  You are exhausted and turning blue.  Just as you are about to collapse quietly in a corner, your group leader---who always has a name like Bambi or Heidi---chirps, “Now that we’re all warmed up, let’s begin our first set of exercises.”  This question flashes through your mind:  when, exactly, did her exercises become our exercises?

20 ESP:  You discover that the rest of the class has been working out at home to Jane Fonda’s Advanced Exercise tape.  You have been using a Debbie Reynolds record and “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.” Add five more ESP if you think Richard Simmons is “cute.”

30 ESP:  Your pants split up the back as you attempt to do a backwards roll.

40 ESP:  Woman next to you on your left looks at your beet-red face and comments, “I see you’re flirting with Old Mr. Blood Pressure.”

50 ESP:  When you are supposed to check your pulse to see if you have achieved your level of aerobic fitness, you cannot find yours.  No one else can find your pulse, either.  You hope this does not mean that you have been declared legally dead at some point during the last twenty minutes.

60 ESP:  You begin to hyper-ventilate and are forced to put your head between your legs---no easy task!  Later, it takes two class members to remove your head from between your legs.

70 ESP:  Food fantasies occupy your thoughts.  Complete this sentence, “Gee, after all this, I can go up to Hagen Daaz and----.” “Jog around the block” is not the phrase you would use to complete this sentence.

80 ESP:  Woman on your right, having made contact with the funny bone in your right elbow with her exercise wand, says, “Excuse me. I’m a little out of practice.  I just got out of the hospital yesterday; the quints are doing fine!”

As the pain escalates, you try to decide whether to (A) steal her exercise wand after class and burn it as an offering to the Exercise God (if She exists), or (B) grab it out of her hand RIGHT NOW and break it over your knee.  You opt for (B), grabbing and breaking.

90 ESP:  You are ejected from the class and the club for willfully and wantonly destroying another class member’s exercise wand.  As you leave, with your pants gaping wide, you are heard muttering about the population explosion.

100 ESP:  Your husband hits the roof.  He discovers that your $500 health club membership fee is non-refundable once you have begun class AND you are billed $50 for the broken exercise wand!

(*Notes from the vantage point of twenty years later: I can’t want to do yoga, either.)

LIFE

There are folks
Who never drink down life,
They sip it, like a tea.
Those people, with their pinkies out,
Those people, they aren’t me!

I taste of life,
I drink it down,
I revel in its feel.
I shan’t let “sensible” prevail
And life’s best moments steal.

So, wear your rubbers,
Watch your back.
Beware the wild and crazy.
Do nothing to excite yourself.
Be fat and dumb and lazy.

Stake out the moral high ground,
Look down on those who don’t,
Amuse yourself? Take looks around?
Please you?
It just won’t.

The bravest of hearts,
The strongest of souls,
They face the night unafraid.
The timid of heart,
The weakest of souls,
Cannot even face the day.