THE DAY I MIFFED MY RIGHT CHEEK
The gang and I returned to the gym because I am trying very hard to develop a daily maintenance routine to defend myself against the flab of our fathers, or rather mothers in most women’s cases. Like you never looked into a mirror and sadly recognized some aspect of your mother’s body looking back at you saying “hey girl! It’s my turn now! Hope you enjoyed your twenties!”? Don’t feel badly, your mother went through the same thing. But I adamantly informed my mother, as she laughed and unsympathetically reassured me that I was getting older and looked fine to her, and promised my body I would fight the transformation with every ounce of my strength right down to the last breath. I would put on boxing gloves and demolish those blubber demons that sought me out and jumped on my belly and behind if I even so much as looked in the direction of a Godiva Chocolatier or smelled fried chicken or burgers and fries. I would go out fighting like a champion. I declared that when they found my corpse lying sprawled out next to the treadmill, the forensic photographers would revel at my beauty and salivate as their eyes ran from my perky twins sitting gingerly…over my onion-like behind that would appear so inviting they would want to caress it. The paramedics, police officers, and on-lookers would all marvel at my exquisiteness.
But I digress. I had a talk with my body parts the night before and thought we were all on the same page that we would transform into an iconic female Adonis, or rather the ideally stunning darker version of the beautiful Helen of Troy; a sort of new age Cleopatra, except lacking knowledge of 6,000 diverse languages. But, who wants to talk anyway? I reassured my body parts that we did not have far to go to reach our goal. I informed them that we would speed up the process and run, not walk, to our mutually agreed upon objective. Each body part seemed fine with this at that moment.
We arrive at the gym and, for a spring day, it is quite empty. You would think that it would be packed as the cows and elephants tended to try like crazy to become strong and svelte like horses and panthers before beach time. “This is great,” I say to my body parts. We can run and wiggle and jiggle without any concern that someone will see our imperfections as we struggle against the anticipated demise of our youth. “We can let go and really push the limits today.” I bent over and touched my toes. I heard my mother in my ear two days earlier saying, “Oh! You can still get down there!” “Of course I can!” I had replied with contempt. That’s when it started. While I was bent over touching my toes like a champion preparing for a bout, my right cheek, now touted upward in the air, said, “Ow!” Hmmm. Did I just hear my behind say something, I thought. I slowly rolled up to a standing position. That wasn’t a bad stretch, I thought. I bent over again and this time grabbed my ankles and pulled my head as close to my knees as it would go. “OW! Good grief! HELLO!” my right cheek exclaimed. I heard her this time and decided she must have been out to lunch the last seven months we had been stretching, speed walking, and doing water aerobics. I eased up on her and bent my right leg, staying in the bent over position. Becoming a perfect 10 was an inflexible goal and she had better join the club, I thought. The others were with me on this as they each relaxed while in the stretch position. I straightened my right leg and glared at my right cheek in the mirror behind me. She winced a little but said nothing this time. Good. I did a few more stretches and we were ready to get started.
I started walking. I elevated the machine to 8.0 and sped it up to about 3.7. I wanted to get my heart involved in the activities so I pumped my arms high as I climbed the treadmill mountain. After about 2 minutes of doing this and when I felt my skin become moist, I lowered the machine to about 3.5 and sped it up to 5.7 and started jogging. I am not going to lie to you, the first three minutes was complete torture. My mind said, “Whoa Betty. You took off like your name is Flo Jo and we just started running today!” My right arm repeatedly complained, “I’m tired. I don’t feel well. My bicep hurts. It’s jingling. I’m tired! Can we stop now?” My twins said, “Hey! Umpgth, umpgth, umpgth! I thought we were getting a new bra! Umpgth, umpgth…there’s enough room in here for ten of us! I keep bumping into neck up there. Hey! Are you listening? I’ll punch you in the chin again, I will!” I ignored them and pressed on. I did forget to bring the new jog bra but it was too late now. My lungs said aloud, “Whoo wee whoo wee” as I tried to regulate my breathing. Sweat poured from my face. My right hamstring said, “Mm ee whew ee. Can do this, can do this, can do this.” I tried to focus on relaxing it. This orchestra of complaining and nagging went on for about ten minutes. I could feel right hamstring’s twinges moving slowly up to right cheek. Still right cheek said nothing. I pressed on.
At about 15 minutes of forced running, I achieved what is known as “runner’s high.” That is the breaking point where your body is good and warmed up, your lungs are in sync with your movement, and you feel like you can run across the continent; in theory of course. So I sped up and pumped my arms even harder, as anyone on a mission to defy age and the inevitable, would. I was almost finished with my workout. I was going so hard and so fast that I could only hear the grunt of the twins as they tried to keep up. “Unh, unh, unh, unh…” they grunted with every step I took. “Yeah!” I thought to myself. “We are going to look like we did when we were 28 and everyone thought we were 21. “Hahahaha!” I laughed in my head, “This’ll be a cinch.”
Forty minutes had gone by and my cool down started. I did it! I was so pumped up and proud of myself. I checked my heart rate. I was a little too sweaty to pass out and die now. I didn’t want to be immortalized as a funky, sweaty chick who had wiped her eyebrows off when wiping her face. That wasn’t the way I had fantasized it at all. My heart rate was 165. “Whoa!” I said aloud. I glanced at the chart on the machine. 144 was operating at 80 percent for my (secret) age group. I must’ve been at 100 percent. I’m the bomb. “I’m the bomb,” I sang in my head and whispered aloud, smiling.
“What? Did she just say she is the bomb?” my left twin asked my right twin. “Yeah. She said it.” My right lung answered. Suddenly I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right side. That’s okay, I thought. Coach always said to just lift your arms over your head and take slow deep breaths when you catch a cramp. So I did. It subsided. My machine slowed another notch. Then my left twin, the defiant one, stuck her tongue out at me. My right twin laughed, throbbing as if she were doubled over in hysteria. I could not believe it. I looked like a freak whose left side was cold and whose right side was jiggly, giggly. I brought my arms down in front of me, resting them on my twins, hiding them from the world. I looked down to make sure lefty had put her tongue back in her obnoxious little mouth and saw my fists glaring up at me as my arms protected the world from her misconduct. I said to them, “I dare you.” They touched each other like the “wonder twins” and seemed to send an electric signal behind me to right cheek who suddenly screamed out, “OW! I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT NO MORE! STOP WALKING NOW! OH MY expletive, expletive, expletive!” And abruptly, I stopped walking. Hell, I stopped standing. I plumb fell down onto the floor writhing in pain in my right cheek behind me. I rubbed and rubbed and soothed and tried to calm her down. She was in a clench like you wouldn’t believe. I forced myself to limp to the massage bench, grateful for the emptiness of the gym so I would not be embarrassed.
Once there, I eased into all kinds of butt stretches so as to straighten things out back there. Eventually she calmed down and the pain subsided. I stood up and took one step, testing the waters. Everything seemed fine. I turned my behind toward the mirror to see if anything was visibly broken. I mean, after all it did feel like it I broke it. Right cheek glared at me in the mirror. I thought, I’d better get out of here and back to the safety of my chair in the office.
I am happy to say I made it back to my office and into my seat. I wasn’t sure she was going to let me but, like me, each of my body parts has a vanity about them that allows us to be resilient and keep up appearances under extreme circumstances like pressure and pain. She hasn’t spoken to me since, though. She’s been tight as a knot in a seven year old’s sneakers and refuses to warm up to me or let me stretch her out. I have to rub ointment on her sometimes because she will just shut down and clench up for no apparent reason, at the most inopportune time. I’m not sure how to repair the relationship. I guess I should have listened in the beginning at the gym when she warned me that she wasn’t quite ready to become fabulous in one day. Now I have to put all of my gorgeousness on hold because she’s pretty miffed at me.
But I digress. I had a talk with my body parts the night before and thought we were all on the same page that we would transform into an iconic female Adonis, or rather the ideally stunning darker version of the beautiful Helen of Troy; a sort of new age Cleopatra, except lacking knowledge of 6,000 diverse languages. But, who wants to talk anyway? I reassured my body parts that we did not have far to go to reach our goal. I informed them that we would speed up the process and run, not walk, to our mutually agreed upon objective. Each body part seemed fine with this at that moment.
We arrive at the gym and, for a spring day, it is quite empty. You would think that it would be packed as the cows and elephants tended to try like crazy to become strong and svelte like horses and panthers before beach time. “This is great,” I say to my body parts. We can run and wiggle and jiggle without any concern that someone will see our imperfections as we struggle against the anticipated demise of our youth. “We can let go and really push the limits today.” I bent over and touched my toes. I heard my mother in my ear two days earlier saying, “Oh! You can still get down there!” “Of course I can!” I had replied with contempt. That’s when it started. While I was bent over touching my toes like a champion preparing for a bout, my right cheek, now touted upward in the air, said, “Ow!” Hmmm. Did I just hear my behind say something, I thought. I slowly rolled up to a standing position. That wasn’t a bad stretch, I thought. I bent over again and this time grabbed my ankles and pulled my head as close to my knees as it would go. “OW! Good grief! HELLO!” my right cheek exclaimed. I heard her this time and decided she must have been out to lunch the last seven months we had been stretching, speed walking, and doing water aerobics. I eased up on her and bent my right leg, staying in the bent over position. Becoming a perfect 10 was an inflexible goal and she had better join the club, I thought. The others were with me on this as they each relaxed while in the stretch position. I straightened my right leg and glared at my right cheek in the mirror behind me. She winced a little but said nothing this time. Good. I did a few more stretches and we were ready to get started.
I started walking. I elevated the machine to 8.0 and sped it up to about 3.7. I wanted to get my heart involved in the activities so I pumped my arms high as I climbed the treadmill mountain. After about 2 minutes of doing this and when I felt my skin become moist, I lowered the machine to about 3.5 and sped it up to 5.7 and started jogging. I am not going to lie to you, the first three minutes was complete torture. My mind said, “Whoa Betty. You took off like your name is Flo Jo and we just started running today!” My right arm repeatedly complained, “I’m tired. I don’t feel well. My bicep hurts. It’s jingling. I’m tired! Can we stop now?” My twins said, “Hey! Umpgth, umpgth, umpgth! I thought we were getting a new bra! Umpgth, umpgth…there’s enough room in here for ten of us! I keep bumping into neck up there. Hey! Are you listening? I’ll punch you in the chin again, I will!” I ignored them and pressed on. I did forget to bring the new jog bra but it was too late now. My lungs said aloud, “Whoo wee whoo wee” as I tried to regulate my breathing. Sweat poured from my face. My right hamstring said, “Mm ee whew ee. Can do this, can do this, can do this.” I tried to focus on relaxing it. This orchestra of complaining and nagging went on for about ten minutes. I could feel right hamstring’s twinges moving slowly up to right cheek. Still right cheek said nothing. I pressed on.
At about 15 minutes of forced running, I achieved what is known as “runner’s high.” That is the breaking point where your body is good and warmed up, your lungs are in sync with your movement, and you feel like you can run across the continent; in theory of course. So I sped up and pumped my arms even harder, as anyone on a mission to defy age and the inevitable, would. I was almost finished with my workout. I was going so hard and so fast that I could only hear the grunt of the twins as they tried to keep up. “Unh, unh, unh, unh…” they grunted with every step I took. “Yeah!” I thought to myself. “We are going to look like we did when we were 28 and everyone thought we were 21. “Hahahaha!” I laughed in my head, “This’ll be a cinch.”
Forty minutes had gone by and my cool down started. I did it! I was so pumped up and proud of myself. I checked my heart rate. I was a little too sweaty to pass out and die now. I didn’t want to be immortalized as a funky, sweaty chick who had wiped her eyebrows off when wiping her face. That wasn’t the way I had fantasized it at all. My heart rate was 165. “Whoa!” I said aloud. I glanced at the chart on the machine. 144 was operating at 80 percent for my (secret) age group. I must’ve been at 100 percent. I’m the bomb. “I’m the bomb,” I sang in my head and whispered aloud, smiling.
“What? Did she just say she is the bomb?” my left twin asked my right twin. “Yeah. She said it.” My right lung answered. Suddenly I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right side. That’s okay, I thought. Coach always said to just lift your arms over your head and take slow deep breaths when you catch a cramp. So I did. It subsided. My machine slowed another notch. Then my left twin, the defiant one, stuck her tongue out at me. My right twin laughed, throbbing as if she were doubled over in hysteria. I could not believe it. I looked like a freak whose left side was cold and whose right side was jiggly, giggly. I brought my arms down in front of me, resting them on my twins, hiding them from the world. I looked down to make sure lefty had put her tongue back in her obnoxious little mouth and saw my fists glaring up at me as my arms protected the world from her misconduct. I said to them, “I dare you.” They touched each other like the “wonder twins” and seemed to send an electric signal behind me to right cheek who suddenly screamed out, “OW! I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT NO MORE! STOP WALKING NOW! OH MY expletive, expletive, expletive!” And abruptly, I stopped walking. Hell, I stopped standing. I plumb fell down onto the floor writhing in pain in my right cheek behind me. I rubbed and rubbed and soothed and tried to calm her down. She was in a clench like you wouldn’t believe. I forced myself to limp to the massage bench, grateful for the emptiness of the gym so I would not be embarrassed.
Once there, I eased into all kinds of butt stretches so as to straighten things out back there. Eventually she calmed down and the pain subsided. I stood up and took one step, testing the waters. Everything seemed fine. I turned my behind toward the mirror to see if anything was visibly broken. I mean, after all it did feel like it I broke it. Right cheek glared at me in the mirror. I thought, I’d better get out of here and back to the safety of my chair in the office.
I am happy to say I made it back to my office and into my seat. I wasn’t sure she was going to let me but, like me, each of my body parts has a vanity about them that allows us to be resilient and keep up appearances under extreme circumstances like pressure and pain. She hasn’t spoken to me since, though. She’s been tight as a knot in a seven year old’s sneakers and refuses to warm up to me or let me stretch her out. I have to rub ointment on her sometimes because she will just shut down and clench up for no apparent reason, at the most inopportune time. I’m not sure how to repair the relationship. I guess I should have listened in the beginning at the gym when she warned me that she wasn’t quite ready to become fabulous in one day. Now I have to put all of my gorgeousness on hold because she’s pretty miffed at me.
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