Monday, October 15, 2007

Have You Ever Been Iced By Your Treadmill?


By: Eh Man
better pen-name pending
-Toothbrush Poorespondent

Every day, people (including myself) flock to stadiums and pay large sums of money to watch sporting events. I have no room to call this stupid or inane, although my mere presence at such an event should alert the masses that this is no brain surgery convention. However, I have happened upon a great discovery. A better sport that is free: treadmill diving.


After a surgery relegated me to the cardio room of my gym, I thought I would be miserable. I dreaded countless hours staring at a muted tv playing Tyra Banks’ show. However, as I pedaled away on my bike, something amazing happened as if ordered by the hand of Zeus himself…
WHAM… A girl on the treadmill directly in front of me absolutely bit it. A perfect symphony of un-coordination and speed. While in absolute sprint she managed to drift slightly enough to the right to allow a foot to catch both the treadmill belt (moving at a pace roughly around 10mph) and the giant plastic side-footrest (moving at a rate somewhere in the range of 0 mph).


The result. The left leg continued on its stationary trip to Pittsburgh; however, the right leg began a rapid yet short-lived excursion towards Nova Scotia. The left leg decisively won the battle, much to the delight of me. She began a swift descent towards the belt which then projected her by the knees backwards to the final destination: a rubber floor. Everyone paused to look or offer help. Thats when the most stunning part happened…


She scrambled to her feet like a cheetah and immediately started running again. While evading every stare and offer of assistance, she steadfastly refused to acknowledge the amazing event that had just transpired. I was completely distraught. I crawled to the top of a Tibetan mountain top and asked myself: Why?... This would be like witnessing someone
get hit by a bus, shaking it off… and walking right back down the bus lane.


Did she really believe that nobody noticed this masterpiece? And if we did, did she think it was that forgettable? ...that we could all ignore the pink elephant in the corner of the room. I wonder if she imagined that it would inspire some jackass to write a thesis.


Like a crack addict, or nascar fan, or crack addicted nascar fan (probably comes hand-in-hand), every day I biked and diligently waited for another crash. One might tell me: “you are creating a great deal of negative karma for yourself… and this will happen to you.” Good. I am waiting. There is a blatant way to deal with a scenario like this. Believe me, EVERYONE knows that you just fell off the treadmill, so you may as well admit it. You have two routes you can take.


-Stay down and stare at the treadmill for a little while. Then begin laughing at yourself. Trust me, everyone is already internally laughing at you… better to change that to externally laughing with you.


-Stay down on the floor. You are already a jackass, may as well be a giant one. Make it memorable.
Begin convulsing and yelling loudly. Finish it off with some incoherent babble about eating a bald eagle for Thanksgiving dinner with Vincent Diesel. Wait until an ambulance comes, tell them you can’t feel your legs, and then make a miraculous recovery 12 minutes later.

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