A couple of months ago our crew was looking at treadmills to buy when one of our Swabbies found out what "Ten Miles an Hour" means when you are on one. Click Here to read about it.

You would think that perhaps our family would swear off devices that would do such things but the Captain had had enough of his midsection. (He was only 20 pounds over his ideal weight. I think he looks pretty good.)

A couple of weeks before Christmas we purchased a personal scale, a treadmill, a stationary bike and a small TV and set them all up in our garage. The Captain was on a mission! He downloaded a program to his phone that would help him monitor his caloric ratios and quickly started on his weight loss voyage.

I, on the other hand, was consumed with Christmas preparations, school and life. While I did go out and begin using the machines, it was not with the same vigor that the Captain did and so....

It annoyed me a little.

We were both off of work for the Winter break and so had much time to experience the charms of one another.

I got a little annoyed.

He inputted his Output (running and biking and other such things) and his Input (cereal and broccoli and How many peas do you think I ate? Was that a cup? A little more than a cup? What about the steak? Was that 8 oz? A little less?) and decided he should lose about 1/2 a pound a day. Then we (and I say "we" only because I felt as though I was intimately involved in the process, albeit drug, unwillingly into the epicenter.)  encountered the ratio difficulties: "AAAhHHHH! I just ate 200 more calories than I was supposed to! I'm (getting up from the dinner table and the dirty dishes) going to go work out."

Annoyed, I was.

And then there was the desire of the super motivated (the Captain) to motivate the lesser motivated (me). "Do you know HOW MANY calories are in that yogurt you are eating?" and "How long did you run on the treadmill?" and "Four miles an hour?!!! Is that as fast as you go?!"

OK!, That's Just Rude!

Then one day he got up at 6am to run and as I put on my stretchy jeans I could hear his vigorous pounding as he jogged away his 1/2 a pound....

...Thump...Thump....Thump....Thump....Thump....Thump....

And suddenly I heard a funny "Thuuumpgsssssssss" and then shortly after, the Captain came in....

with a funny look on his face....

...and I casually drank my tea and waited...

...until he said, "I think I broke the treadmill."

Ashamedly, I think I laughed.

But that's not the end of the story.

After two days of me expecting him to call the sporting goods store to have them fix our machine that is under warranty, I realized that he wasn't going to. I can only imagine trying to make that call:

"Uh, hi. Yeah, our treadmill is broken and is still under warranty. Could you come out and fix it? What's that? How did it break? I was using it and it cracked under my weight."

So, I made the call and was told that we would have to wait at least a week for the part to come in. The captain waited a few days and then couldn't take it any more...

Look for reasons to make your eyes smile.  

a Unintelligentcia 2006