Return to Funny Articles mainpage

Getting into shape
By: Paul Mather

Okay, no kidding around: I'm 30 and it's time I got into shape. I mean, when I say I need to be in shape I don't mean I need to be in shape. I don't need to be in perfectly-flat-stomach, pumped-up-bicep, ready-for-the-triathalon type of shape. I'm shooting for hold-your-gut-in, squint-while-you-look-in-the-mirror and-you-can-convince-yourself-you-look-okay type of shape.

The thing is I've never found any kind of exercise I can keep up with. I've tried biking, stairclimbing, weightlifting and, yes, NordicTrack (a word which, by the way, I was just surprised to learn is included in the Microsoft Word spelling dictionary).

My pattern is this: I find a type of exercise, do it for a couple of weeks, start to get into shape (not the first type of shape, the second) and then I'll get bored of the whole thing and go back to eating cheesies. (A word which, by the way, I was just surprised to learn is not included in the Microsoft Word spelling dictionary. I mean, I ask you, which is a Microsoft employee more likely to come into contact with? Exercise equipment or cheesies?)

Anyway, my latest form of exercise that I'll probably soon stop doing is swimming. I'm surprised I didn't try it sooner. I'm close to a pool and, besides, of all the forms of exercise swimming is the one that's the most like being a spaceman.

Like a spaceman, you float. Like a spaceman, you wear goggles. Okay, granted, that's not a lot of ways it's like being a spaceman, but it's much more like being a spaceman that, say, doing sit-ups. On the exercises-similar-to-being-a-spaceman index, swimming rates quite high.

Now, let's clear up a few misconceptions. When you're swimming to get into shape there's no splashing around, laughing, throwing a ball, swinging on a rope, cannonballs, or other types of fun. No, what you do when you're swimming to get into shape is this: swim to one end of the pool. Turn around. Swim back. Repeat. Eventually you get really tired. Then you stop.

The problem with the process is that, invariably, everybody else in the pool is either (a) 72 years old or (b) 12. So you've either got a really old person in front of you who isn't so much swimming as drifting or you've got a little kid darting in front of you who's splashing and playing and is oblivious to the fact that we're not here to have fun we're here to dutifully swim around in circles until we're very tired, dammit. Sometimes both (a) and (b) happen at once.

I mean, it's understandable. The old people are doing their best and the little kids are just being little kids. In fact, I think I can remember being a little kid and getting into trouble for swimming out into the adult swim lanes. I think I even remember wondering why anybody would want to swim back and forth like that instead of having fun.

Now I know. I'm 30 now, and I have to get into shape. No more splashing or playing or swinging on that rope. Holding someone else's head underwater is right out. It's swimming around in a circle for me... at least for another week or so, then I'll probably go back to eating cheesies. (I mean, I'm flabbergasted! How could that not be in the spelling dictionary?)