I should’ve known better.
Whenever I whine about myself in any way — but usually in the way that reflects my dissatisfaction with body parts — my friend, Anne, who’s a very “put-up or shut-up” kind of gal, takes me to task.
I hate her.
I made the mortal error of reporting that after several years of running, my thighs still looked like two bruised summer squash, but paler. She strongly suggested a spin class. Which is to say she told me she was picking me up at 4:45 sharp, I was to be spin-ready, with a towel, water, money and an attitude the very opposite of my usual one. I tried to wiggle out of it by using my asthma, irritable bowel, hemorrhoids and bunion as an excuse, but she honked precisely at her pre-ordained pick up time and I slouched out to meet my sad destiny.
This’ll be fun, she said. You can do it, she said. It’s just like a regular bike ride, she said.
Liar.
I doubted her with every fiber of my being but let me say that I used to ride my pink banana seat Schwinn with the mod flower decals at break-neck speed up and down the hills of South Wilkes- Barre back when you could do that kind of thing and not get your walkie-talkie stolen.
Maybe I could do this, after all. I mean, I just have to rotate my legs, right?
The spin room was dark and very warm, just like hell.
There were steel-framed apparatuses that I assumed were bikes that go nowhere, but they looked like what the Sons of Anarchy might ride in their off-gang time. I tried to hop onto the seat. I needed a hoist. Apparently, one must self-size several aspects of the bike and since she force-fed this class to me, Anne was responsible for adjusting my “saddle,” handlebars and tension setting until it all read “Newbie Hobbit” in flashing red letters. Then, just like my worst nightmare ever, my feet were strapped into the peddles so there was no chance for escape.
The instructor, Michelle, was lovely: very sweet, yet authoritative, while spinning like a flying monkey through Oz.
What the hell was she saying?
I couldn’t hear her over the blood pounding in my ears and the sound of my own panting, wheezing, stark fear and sweat dripping from my eyeballs and earlobes and landing in a puddle around my funky bike thing.
I swept my gaze continuously between the clock on the wall and an elderly gentleman in the corner. If he could keep up with this Purgatory, then so could I.
Guess what?
No.
Anne was, of course, soaring along like the freaking Unicorn Princess she is; no perspiration, just a slight glistening scattered with glitter and hearts.
“Isn’t this fun?” she rhapsodized.
I whimpered: “How. Much. Longer?”
She said: “You’ve been on that bike seven minutes.”
That’s when I blacked out.
When I came to, I slid from that freaking “saddle,” using profuse perspiration and tears as the lubrication necessary to slither onto the floor, while my feet, still in stirrup mode, prompted me to momentarily recline upside down.
Finally free, I crawled out of that class, lacerated tail between my malformed vegetable-shaped legs. My nether region was aflame and screaming for mercy and it was my duty to take it home to a hot bath before it fell completely off.
So, if you see me this week and I’m walking like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it, you’ll know why. The only thing I want spinning in my life are my own wheels.
Aimlessly and fruitlessly. Theoretically and literally.
And most definitely not in a hot, dark room, listening to Metallica and wishing for a saddle covered in angel wings and a mattress.
