Original humor & comedy articles daily weblog

Exercise, Schmexercise… Who Brought the Cranberries?

Christ, am I gonna be sore tomorrow.

I just got done playing two hours of volleyball. I’m in a league that plays once a week, indoors, in three sessions — spring, fall, and winter. Tonight was the first game of the fall league, and damn, is it going to hurt.

See, between the sessions, there’s really nothing remotely resembling ‘exercise’ in my life. I don’t run, or lift weights, or walk around the neighborhood. I drive my fat ass to work, sit my fat ass at a desk all day, lug it home, and then plop it on a couch all night. On a non-volleyball day, the most exertion I typically get is brushing my teeth. Or maybe digging change out of my pocket for lunch. Or pooping.

What? Everybody poops, dammit. Don’t give me that look.

Anyway, it’s not really an issue mid-season. Two hours of exercise a week is manageable. Not exactly ‘recommended daily allowance‘, or anything, but it’s not crippling, either. It’s the breaks between the sessions that gets my lungs all panty. And not in a good way.

From fall to winter session isn’t so bad. It’s only a couple of weeks. Even I can’t re-sedentariarize that quickly.

From winter to spring is only six weeks or so — but Thanksgiving and Christmas are in there. Some people spend the holidays catching up with their family, exchanging gifts, singing carols, and doing god-knows-what with that nasty eggnog bullshit. Me? For Thanksgiving, I see how many cans’ worth of cranberry sauce I can stuff into a turducken before I cram it down my turduckenhole. And Christmas — well, it’s pretty much the same thing, only I stuff candy canes into a plump, fattened goose. Holiday traditions are important, dammit.

The worst, though, is the spring-to-fall break.

(The ancient Mesopotamians used to call that ‘summer‘. That’s ‘sum-mer‘. History is fun!)

Anyway, that’s nothing but three months of barbecues, ball park dogs, and delicious, tangy cranberry-stuffed turducken. Hey, why only treat yourself once a year? Dammit, I’m worth it!

It’s also three months of getting fatter, slower, and tragically unhipper. Not to mention a quarter-year older. And I’m just a year or two away from senile as it is. I can feel my pants creeping up towards my nipples as we speak. Ugh.

So, tomorrow’s going to feel like fresh hell, with a sadistic German masseuse. At least I didn’t injure myself, I suppose. That’s a minor miracle, right there. I’m getting better at remembering to stretch and warm up before I play — meanwhile, getting worse at the actual stretching and heating up parts. I remember when I could touch my toes, no problem. Now, it’s a strain to touch my navel. And oddly, I have trouble not touching, once I’ve found it. Let’s not talk about that.

The biggest issue is that I really only warm up to prevent injuries I’ve already had. I’ve blown out both calves — and no, they didn’t make a *ssssssshhhhhsssss* balloon noise, thank you — so I stretch them out. I pulled a hammy once, so I stretch those. And I got my back all out of whack a couple of times, so I bend and gyrate around a few times, trying to limber it up. It sounds like bubble wrap being popped right behind my neck. Neato.

But what about all the parts that I haven’t hurt, but no doubt will some day? No out-of-shape slob like me can exert himself without something going awry; we’re just not built for that kind of nonsense. So, I fully expect to be lying in the hospital soon, with a doctor standing over me saying:

‘Looks like you’ve sprained an eyelid… and pulled your left asscheek. You’ll need to stay off that for three weeks, which is why we’ve immobilized you face-down on the bed.

Oh, and also, you’ve dislocated a kidney. We’ve X-rayed your abdomen, trying to find it, but the film is very blurry because of something in your digestive tract blocking the rays. I think it’s time we talked about cutting back on your turducken consumption. Or at least removing the bones before you eat them. That’s rough on the colon, you know.‘

Meh. Who said this ‘exercise’ bullshit was worth it, anyway? Maybe I’ll just cut it out altogether — then I can have my turducken and eat it too. So to speak. Sure, they’ll eventually have to cut me out of my bathtub, or forklift me off the bed, but hey — I won’t be dislocating any kidneys trying to be ‘healthy’. Pass the gravy, please.