Health is Wealth - More Silent Evil

Do not provoke your personal trainer.

Write it out, like Bart Simpson, on the chalkboard 100 times.

Do not provoke your personal trainer.

Do not provoke your personal trainer.

Do not provoke your personal trainer.

Today, we let her know how much we watch the clock.

"Half way through!" I told Fluffy Bear, patting him on his sweaty back with my sweaty hand once we were thirty minutes in. And then, my first mistake: "Fifteen minutes to the mats!"'

We did more lunges, we did more squats, we did more weights.

"Five minutes to mats!" I panted at Fluffy Bear, tempting fate.

Silent Evil walked us over to the area where the mats are. We began to relax.

HAH!

She veered left, away from the mats, to get one of the Balls of Doom. We had to stand on one leg and toss the ball to each other. Then we had to stand sideways and twist, scooping the ball to our far hip, then toss it to the other person.

Now, surely, I thought, the mats.

Nope.

Time to play tag. Run accross the gym to a little green ball, touch it, run back, touch Fluffy Bear's hand, then watch him run. We were moaning, panting, stumbling. We were delivering a public service to all other people in the gym - making them feel that, no matter how much pain they were in, no matter how tired they were, at least they weren't us. She made us do it five times each.

When we were done, she walked over towards the mats.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Nope.

She stopped at the big plastic balls, the ones that have sand in them.

We had to swing them up over our heads, lunge to the side and hit the ball on our knee, then go to the other side. As soon as he had finished his ten on each side, Fluffy Bear sat down on his ball, panting and rubbing his face with a towel. It isn't very easy to keep exercising when you are laughing.

"The mats!" I begged. "Surely it's time for the mats!"

Nope.

We had to lift the ball above our head, then squat, swinging it down to the floor between our legs, stand up and lift it over our heads again. Twenty times.

Usually we get the respite of the mats fifteen minutes before the end of the hour. Now we only had five minutes left. I was starting to despair.

But, finally, she got out the mats.

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

I'll never mention the mats again.