Stupid exercise...

We went to the gym. I tried to get out of it, I really did. But Meelyn called up her dad and ratted me out like a big rotten tattletaling tattletale.

"He wants to talk to you." She held out the phone with a little smirk.

Our conversation went like this:

Me: "Hello?" (emphasis on "hell")

My husband: "Bla bla bla....good role model....bla bla bla.....intellectual, spiritual, physical....bla bla bla...learn by your example...bla bla-bla bla bla...."

Me [interrupting]: "Ohhhhh, just put a sock in it. I'll go to the stupid gym."

We went to the YMCA and Meelyn leaped aboard one of those cross-trainer machines that look as if it had its beginnings in the slimy dungeon of some medieval castle, only now made of shiny chrome and black metal instead of wood. It can't fool me. Aisling climbed aboard the one beside her and they both started doing their thing.

I went to a treadmill and pouted through my "workout," wondering why I never get that feeling of endorphin bliss that other people seem to achieve so naturally. My husband, who occasionally goes out to run five miles or so just to unwind, has been telling me for the past four thousand years (or maybe it just feels that way) that exercise is my friend and that it feels so good. One one memorable occasion, he and my cousin Susan tag teamed each other, extolling the virtues of exercise until I thought they were going to levitate.

Apparently, you have to start out with a good attitude, which is something I've never had about exercise. You know what makes me have a good attitude? Sitting down with a really cold Diet Coke with lime and a bowl of popcorn and a good book. Or maybe watching The Wedding Planner or Maid in Manhattan, because I have an unfathomable weakness for Jennifer Lopez movies. That's what gives me a good attitude.

I was in a nasty mood by the time we got back home, in no frame of mind to cook dinner. We were having homemade spaghetti sauce and whole wheat pasta and I was going to make a spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and red onion, but I was just too irritable. That's the kind of person I am. I will cheat my family out of fresh vegetables just because I don't like walking on a treadmill at the Y.

Do you think the publishers of one of those homeschooling magazines I was talking about earlier will let me pose for a cover photo? Heh.