WORKING IT OUT

There's an old and innocently cruel joke that goes something like, "How did Helen Keller's parents punish her when she was naughty?" Answer - "They moved around the furniture".

As a teenager this joke elicited a few harmless chuckles from me, but now as an adult "working out" at the gym, I suddenly have a great deal of compassion for "olde Helen" especially when they decide to move the Nautilus weight training machines around.

I'm a creature of habit - and I have my work-out routine down to a science. From time to time the sports club management decides to upgrade, rearrange and move machines around, sometimes to another floor - and this drives me absolutely crazy! Working out is tough enough without having to worry about where your machine disappeared to.

And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, although I must admit I find it especially amusing on a crowded morning to see other club members trying to look casual as they run back and forth like "Keystone Cops" looking for their machine of choice before anyone else finds it first.

I've spent more time looking for a particular machine than I have actually working out on it!

If you're curious as to why I don't ask a member of the fitness staff where the machine has moved to - I have my reasons;

First of all these Nautilus contraptions all look alike. Something like Rube Goldberg would have invented. They all have weights. They all have handles. They all have levers and black plastic upholstered seats that move up and down if you're lucky. They all have things for your arms to rest on and things for your legs to rest on. They all have names that refer to the part of the body they're supposed to benefit like "Lats" or "Quads" or "Pecks" or whatever, but quite frankly, I can't tell those things apart either.

Once, just once, when I was feeling particularly brave, I walked up to the line of "Fitness Professionals" schmoozing in front of their "Fitness Professionals" office and I said, "I'm looking for the machine with the arms and that silver plate thing to rest your feet on..." - and they all looked at me like I was nuts which by that point I was, since I'd already spent most of my adult life looking for the damn thing! If the truth be told, those "Fitness Professionals" can't tell one machine from the other either.

I'll say one thing about Helen Keller, when all that water was pumped into her hands and her entire whole world opened up, I bet she had no idea she should be drinking at least eight glasses a day!

And while I'm on the subject - why is that woman over there wearing cultured pearls to the gym? I can understand if you forgot to take out your diamond studs from the night before, but pearls as an exercise accessory? I just don't get it.