Alternative Ways of Exercise

This was a complicated game, Mousetrap. We used to not play it but just put it together and watch it go. In fact, I don't think I ever actually played the game and don't even know how you're supposed to. But it was fun just sliding the pieces in their slots and seeing how well it worked. And more often than not, the whole thing could make it from start to finish without screwing up. It seems like the ball overshot the first thing, the stairway, once in a while. But that wasn't even the most complicated part.

I like efficiency, but I also like alternate ways of doing things. My first inclination is to get from Point A to Point B by the shortest, most efficient means. Then there is the "enjoyment" of life that we're reminded of every once in a while, such as taking the obscure highway instead of the interstate. It would be my habit to take the interstate. And it is my habit to try to come up with a form or format for whatever the job is, to get it done, to have more free time to sit around and feel tired.

We used to draw pictures in school -- while we were supposed to be studying, probably -- of crazy machines, like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich making machine. I was fascinated with the idea of assembly lines -- conveyor belts, where you could picture the bread getting spritzed with some peanut butter, etc. Actually, if you watch "Modern Marvels" on History Channel, it's about that way with things. I saw one episode where they were making toothpicks. Fascinating stuff. And making hottubs. Again, they've got it down to a science.

The doctor says I need to exercise more. So that means going to the fitness club and standing there going back and forth. I need an alternative way of doing it. Like they strap you in and it moves you back and forth like toffee on one of those toffee stretching machines. Probably they can't do it because you'd be locked in, your leg would break and there you'd be, spinning away in a million pieces.

In my whole Grandma Slump/Loser Grandson universe, I was thinking of hooking my exercise bike to the motor of my old go-kart, then sitting there and letting the mechanism take me back and forth. Sounds funny at first, but that's just the same as saying you've got an exercise bike with a motor. Which they probably really have. It might be funnier if I hooked it up and sat on my easy chair and watched it. But in what sense would that be exercise? It's absurd.

The only real way to do exercise is to chugga-chugga motion, do it yourself.