A Serviceable Villain

Watched someone in sweats the other day walking towards the end of the shopping center that has a fitness center smoking a cigarette, which she finished and flicked onto the parking lot in front of the entrance before going inside. 

I smoked two/three packs of cigarettes a day for twenty-two (plus) years and have my own definitions of insanity and dependence, as does each of us with a vice, but for Kafkaesque humor, you'd have to go some to top that. I'm thinking perhaps of trying to wolf down a Haagen-Dazs giant ice cream cone before crossing the threshold into the fitness center, assuming the H-D guys are still in business and make such an item.

We like the routine, the reassurance of the rote drill (I think), and maybe that's where we believe the benefit accrues. It's like small children learning the Pledge of Allegiance long before they have any idea what allegiance even means (for some of us that's still true through old age). A whole generation now hits the fitness centers in the same way previous ones frequented the bars and clubs on Saturday nights or the churches on the Sunday mornings that followed.

But for what purpose, and to what end? Behaviorists refer to an Obesity epidemic in the United States and it surfaces for its fifteen minutes on the electronic vapor and vapid box in the corner of the living room and then we have another double cholesterol-and-bacon burger from the neighborhood drive-in and don't forget to supersize the fries and, what?-oh yeah, the drink? Gimme a diet cola, no ice.

Instead of studying and attempting to learn the lessons behind research like this, we watch talk shows where panelists discuss it without resolving the issue and dream of the day we can be in the studio audience, and under our theater seat is a special thank you gift ......pair of Nike Running shoes(?) I think not. There may not be a free lunch like the teachers in school told us, but everyone knows someone with healthy eating tips, and the napkins are recyclable.

I'm wondering if we're not better off just eliminating the middleman and cutting out the white space. Put a cigar bar in the fitness center--or set up one of those luxurious dessert places in the lobby; call it "Cool Whip and Curls", and no one will snicker. Those who wish to indulge can, and the rest of us can pretend to not see any of it as it'll all be out of sight. 

Look at how often we've used that trick to handle world events that should and could have numbed us. Besides, it keeps us from walking around with our eyes closed-people can get hurt going through life like that.
-bill kenny