Saturday Bill went to hang out with one of his old high school buddies. I'm all for that, and if he had been straight with me about which day he made the plans I'd have had a few hours of time to spend doing something more exciting than hanging around the house with Sweetie. As it was, I didn't have any clear idea as to when he might come home, and we had plans for the movies.
When he did make an appearance back at the apartment he wasn't alone. He bought one of those contraptions that supposedly makes it easy to have the abs of a god or goddess. I almost went nuclear on him. To understand why, let me give you a brief recollection of our history of buying fitness machines.
Shortly after I met Bill in 2002 he bought this machine that is supposed to help you achieve the swedish splits. You sit on it and turn a crank that moves your legs out to the sides. It's big, expensive and heavy. I know it's heavy since we've moved 4 times since he got it. He used it maybe 1/2 dozen times and it took up floor space for awhile until he moved it into the hall closet. It's been collecting dust ever since.
The next machine to join our family was a stair stepper. The kind that only has the foot pedals, no hand support. This was used briefly by both of us until it became a resident of the bedroom closet. It made a reappearance two apartments later for more use until it broke from being used by someone over the weight limit. It sat broken on our balcony for a few months until it was finally hauled away under cover of night so the manager wouldn't see us disposing of non-approved waste in the bins.
Shortly after the stair stepper went on hiatus the inversion table came to live with us. It was supposed to condition someone to the feeling of being upside down with the added bonus of relieving pressure on the spine. It also was used briefly until someone exceeded the maximum weight that the table is rated for. It made friends with the splits machine in the hall closet. They're in a long term relationship.
We took a break in collecting lifestyle enhancing machines for a couple of years. During which time I think Bill started saving for the next one, since it costs more than 1/2 as much as my car did brand new. The massage chair joined us about a year ago. I think Bill spent as much time choosing and purchasing that as he did his car. This thing is the cadillac of massage chairs. Head to ankle, a dozen preset programs and manual controls. A person should be required to have a drivers license for it. It now commands an imposing presence at one end of the living room.
One would think with such a chair that all thought of massage would cease to exist. But no, somehow the designers of the chair neglected to take into consideration that feet need to be massaged. So ....... the massage chair gained a younger, smaller sibling in the foot massager. They're quite compatable and get along pretty good.
So, our apartment is filled to the brim with machines to improve our lives and bodies. I think only the massage chair is used, infrequently, and only with permission. So, imagine my shock when the ab lounger machine came home last weekend. I'm not sure where it will live since the closets are full, the floor space is spoken for except the human trails to the kitchen and bedroom. It should be interesting to watch Bill's internal conflict progress to denial when he talks himself into either setting up the machine for use, thereby obstructing all meaningful space left in the apartment, or his storing a brand new, unopened machine, possibly adding to the "fitness machine family" in the hall closet if there is even any room there.
