Running On a Treadmill, Goin' Down and Down

I went to the gym because it's cold and raining outside.

Oh sure, the rest of the country has lovely white snow. In Memphis we get gray wet shit that may or may not turn to ice and drop our powerlines. Again.

Anyway, I needed a run. I wanted to do something else. But I looked in the mirror and concluded that I needed a run. About a 100 mile run. But as my lunchbreak isn't quite that long, I settled for a shorter one.

I got on a treadmill and I slowly worked my way up to a good speed. I stared from TV set to TV set as they all either talked about Obama, Hillary, or how the stock market analysts all swore we should sell everything RIGHT NOW as the market is diving, and right after we did, they all bought up all our sales at dirt cheap prices and went yachting with big fat smiles on their faces.

Four miles on a treadmill is mind-numbingly painful. This gym being so small and sparsely populated is a double-edged sword. When I'm lifting weights it's great to be left all alone so I can focus on what I'm doing. When I'm on the treadmill forced to look at Oprah's big fat face, I'd much prefer that some good-looking women come in and run with me. I may be only vaguely aware of their presence, and they may bring seriously unappreciated drama to the gym when there are too many of them, but I swear to God, even a little drama is better than what I had.

One of the channels appeared to be talking football. But they kept intermingling it with clips from the Brady Bunch. WTF? And then they had several of the Bradys on, too, all grown up. They'd switch from Tom Brady to Greg Brady and then show a clip of Marsha being hit in the nose with the football. I guess it was supposed to be funny. Maybe if the sound was on I'd have appreciated it better?

One TV was on CNN, but the subtitles were hosed and taking up over half the screen, so all I could see was the tops of people's communist heads and then a big black rectangle covering the rest with the odd phrase "Hnnnnnnnnggggggggg" written across it. I guess whomever was responsible for trasnscripting the dialog for deaf people must have died and fallen onto the keyboard?


CNN reporters
Fox News was on another one of the TVs. I don't know what they were saying, but they have a female reporter who looks like a living, breathing Barbie doll. I swear, if they ever make a Barbie movie, she should play Barbie. She's hot. Even without knowing what she was saying, I liked her. I assumed she was saying nice things. About me. To me, in fact. To be frank, I think she was hitting on me.



It was then that I suspected I may have run far enough. I was seeing spots and my sweat had turned cold. The Fox News lady had asked me to marry her and I had said 'yes'. We were going to honeymoon in Australia. Something seemed odd about the whole scenario, but I wasn't complaining.

Why am I running?

Oh yeah. Time to stop and take a shower. And put my brain back in. Damn, that treadmill running is boring as hell.