I Hate My New Friend

I really do. I hate her. Her name is Laura, she is my neighbor and she is evil. Here's why: she makes me work out.

I KNOW! Why would I put up with such vile, vicious treatment by someone if I don't have to?

Really, it's my own fault. She and I were talking last April about having gained some weight (*cough* 15 pounds *cough*), the gym being really far (snort), and not having time during the day to exercise (she works from home, so that's reasonable for her; I'm a Stay At Home Mom, so I've got nothing BUT time). I came up with the brilliant idea to get up early in the morning and walk before having to get kids ready for school.

It all sounded good in theory. We'd start our day off on a positive note, we'd get a chance to bitch catch up, and we'd be doing something HEALTHY. Plus, I have to get up 45 minutes later anyway to get the kids off to school. What's 45 minutes?

However, I failed to take into account my lifelong ambition of being the world record holder for the number of times hitting the snooze button. I HATE to get out of bed. Even if I've gotten 11 hours of sleep, I will not get out of bed one minute before I'm required to. Why did I not remember this when I agreed to this schedule? Does the world even continue to EVOLVE before 6am? I'm not sure that it does.

To our credit, we have been consistently getting up and walking for half an hour three times a week since April. I refuse to count the 5 weeks that I was in California and not walking because, Hello? I was on VACATION. Other than that, I've only missed when I had a stupid migraine or when The Man was on a stupid business trip.

So, really, how could I say I hate my friend when all this was my idea? Get this: now she's joined my gym, where I've been so very generously donating dues for the past 6 months without using up any of their precious resources. I'm a giver.

Yeah, she's going to the gym, DRAGGING me along, and actually making me work out. It's so much easier to a) not go, or b) go and pretend to work out, while really just sitting on the bike riding with no resistence while I catch up on Murder, She Wrote, subtitled.

The thing that pushed me over the edge to pure, unadulterated hatred was yesterday, when she convinced me to take a step aerobics class. "It's only 15 minutes!", she exclaims. "I haven't done it for 10 years, so I don't know what I'm doing either!", she assures me.

Bitch.

Okay, technically, the schedule DID say it was only a 15 minute class, but after 20 minutes as I was standing, huffing and puffing and considering vomiting, I realized there must have been a typo on the schedule.

I have never felt so out of place as I did during those 20 minutes. Several other people raised there hands with me to proclaim it was our first step class. Great, I thought, I won't be the only one looking like a moron.

Ha. Hahahahahahaha.

No, I was the only one who had to keep stopping, either because I was about to vomit or pass out, or because I was completely mystified at how to follow Bouncy McBlondie the instructor. She assured us that it just took a little while to get the names for the steps down, but after hearing them many times, I still wasn't able to coordinate my stupid legs with my stupid feet with the stupid rest of the class. And OF COURSE, Laura looks like she's been doing step class since the womb. I looked like an idiot, but to quote Monica Geller, "Yeah, but I'm doing it!" and I just kept going even if I was completely out of sync with the group.

Luckily, I had a built in excuse for quitting the class 40 minutes before it was done, as I had to take Boodle to the Orthodontist, but if Laura the Evil ever gets me to do this class again, I'm pretty sure I'll be quitting at the 20 minute water break EVERY DAMN TIME.

Maybe I should just move.