Stupid Exercise!

February 5, 2019

God has a strange sense of humor. I have often been the recipient of his practical jokes. Recently I wrote about needing to get back to a steady exercise routine, and yesterday I actually started out. Things went pretty well, considering I haven’t used this particular routine in more than a year. Nearly twenty years ago when God nudged me into working out, I bought a VHS set that I followed religiously for about a year and a half. It was pretty ambitious, but I lost about 15 pounds, and over time was able to work my way to actually completing the routines that at first had me wheezing like a leaky bellows. 

Then Linda bought me a Total Gym machine—the one advertised by Chuck Norris and Christy Brinkley. A different set of exercises meant I had to again start at the bottom and work my way up, which I did. I’ve been using that machine for nearly 15 years, and it continues to serve me well. But as anyone involved in physical fitness will tell you, the body develops a muscle memory that if not varied occasionally, eventually renders the exercise less effective. I began to notice this happening, and ordered the DVD 25 minute routine from Shaun T. 25 minutes of that had me sweating as I had never done with the Total Gym. It was a good change up, until I developed plantar fasciitis. Suddenly, there was no way I could do the cardio portion, and had to revert to the machine. 

Fast forward to yesterday. The foot issues have cleared up, and God had once again clearly spoken. It was time to step up my routine. With the Total Gym, I could do the workout in my slippers. There is no fancy footwork required, which is what enabled me to continue working out during my foot foibles. Not so with the DVD routine, so I dug my gym shoes out of the closet and started in. The living room is the only room where we have a DVD player, a small, portable unit that Linda uses for her routine, so I took out her DVD, inserted mine, and started in. Sure enough, inside of five minutes, I was sweating, my mouth was dry, and my lungs felt like they were about to explode. And my olfactory senses kicked into high gear, which seemed rather odd.

I smelled cat pee. I stopped to sniff around the room. Our living room is over a crawl space with a dirt floor; if we aren’t careful, when we go down to the basement for any reason, our cat who is normally lazier than Garfield, can quick as lightning zip through our legs into the basement to prowl around. I haven’t actually caught him in the act, but I am sure the reason he likes the basement is because that crawl space looks like a giant litter box to him. So I am sniffing my way through the living room trying to locate the source of the offending odor, to no avail. Back to exercise, and the aroma returns; the mystery is deepening...until I am finished and change out of my workout gear prior to showering. I smell that faint odor of cat pee again, but I’m no longer in the living room! Where could this be coming from?

All of a sudden, I knew. Whenever I do any work outside that requires footwear that I don’t care if it gets dirty, these old sneakers come out. And when the job is over, they often sit in the entry room until I get around to putting them away. And the entry room is where the cat resides overnight. That stupid cat had peed in my shoes! 

There is no deep lesson to be learned, no moral to draw from this tale, except to never trust a feline to be polite or civil. If a cat decides you are the enemy, you have an enemy for life. And I think God laughs.