Skin and Bone

I look into the mirror every morning and wonder "where did my spring go?" while staring at an ancient and growing-uglier-by-the-minute face. It's all well and good to blame harsh lighting in the bathroom, but I recognize that for the lie it is. I am grateful the bathroom mirror is part of the vanity because a full-length reflection would probably cause me to shoot out all the lights.

Because of various medical maladies, I have to watch what I eat and drink, while mourning the absence of that of which I can no longer consume, and strive to 'hit 10K everyday.'
That is, I make a conscious effort to log ten thousand steps on a daily basis; ideally at a brisk walk (three separate sets of knee surgery have made 'brisk walk' feel like a wind sprint).
I go about this every single day with a grim and joyless determination that would be the envy of all my friends, if I had any.

As summer and its cruel cousin, the Indian one, fades into fall heading into, inexorably, winter, the degree of difficulty for comfortable outdoor walking escalates (the enjoyment went eons ago) and, like many, I head for the Great Indoors. The irony of climbing three sets of stairs to use a stair-climbing machine in the fitness center is not lost on me, but up the stairs I head. The universe's mocking laughter is audible even over the maximum volume of old guy rock and roll playing on my mp3.

Lately, I've been at the fitness center when a treadmill (though they're not called that anymore, are they?) is available. I almost said 'free'. Have you priced these things for home use? Let's hear it for fitness centers. No, seriously, I can wait for a machine. Take your time. I'm not going anywhere, especially after I get on the thing.

I have inordinate respect for, and total fear of, nearly all technology and machinery. I'm not convinced, even after 55 years of life here on the ant farm, that there isn't a conspiracy out to get me despite my being the nicest person on Earth since the Other Perfect Guy was around.
This morning it all converged and almost killed me.

As I started on the thirty minute treadmill workout, the battery in the mp3 player, gamer that it was, finally gave out. That I know all of the music by heart so that I actually NEVER need to hear any of it again is not the point. I had a serious problem, but everything is relative, even though I don't have an aunt or uncle in this state (so much for City Council for them, too).

A problem, I'm told, is really an opportunity to excel. Perhaps for self-help gurus.
Not Mrs. Kenny's oldest son. (Mom has asked I stop calling myself 'Mrs. Kenny's favorite son.' Something about truth in advertising with a threat of cease and desist orders.)

Turns out, the dearth of music wasn't 'serious' at all.
Lurching forward on the treadmill, vainly imitating a normal strider, struggling with a suddenly-dead audio device on my upper left arm, I lost sight of what the treadmill was about, mischievous little ba$tard that it is.
I was in a 'cardio' workout which has something to do with elevating the heart rate (having crummy batteries in my mp3 player was doing a decent job, by the way.) I was suddenly having a very hard time simply staying on the treadmill. I looked down to see an "HR" display of 164, and numbers heading North.

Every step was hard to take and getting harder by the footfall.
That's when I realized there are 'speed' and 'incline' controls on these machines. It wasn't the speed, alone, that was killing me, it was the incline, 13.2 something or others. What am I, a mountain goat?

Because I haven't paid any attention to any of these controls until this moment, I have no idea how they work or how to regain command of the treadmill. Flashing before my eyes is a silent, black and white grainy film clip of me as I lose the fight with both gravity and an incline of 17 point somethings and am whipped away by the ever treading mills of the machine to be flung into the wall ten feet behind the machine, all at a speed approaching sonic. Leaving a blood-soaked smear some four feet up, I slowly slide down, ending up as a pile of sweat-soaked gym clothes, mixed with what looks like hairy strawberry ice cream with toes, until closing time.

The person working out on the next machine in a moment of kindness and humanity I know someday they'll regret, recognizing a 'serious problem' when they saw it, reached over and saved my life. How would you like to have that on your conscience?
It's enough to make you climb twenty or more flights on the stairmaster and make like Gilbert O'Sullivan, leaving me alone again, naturally.
-bill kenny