Swampland.com

Grandma Got Run Over By A Treadmill or Southern Belles at Midlife

First of all let me say that I am not a grandmother, but I am old enough to be one. That being said, I will continue with the story.

In an effort to level the playing field in the never-ending battle against bulge, my sister (did I mention she weighs 122 pounds soaking wet) and I joined the gym in Rogersville, Alabama, in January of this year. Rogersville is just seven minutes up the highway and has a population of 1200. We felt fairly secure that no one would know us. Well, they do now.

My sis and I have been dutifully working out three to four days a week for three weeks and had managed to keep a low profile. Sister was doing both the treadmill and weights as she is more concerned with osteoporosis than weight loss. As for me (I have said to my doctor on more than one occasion "Do I look like a candidate for osteoporosis?"), I much prefer mindless activity to anything that involves concentration so I just do the treadmill. That brings us to yesterday.

Monday morning sis and I arrived at the gym around 11 am. The jocks were already there lifting weights, and I was trying to look as jock as possible. Sister, who is generally oblivious to her surroundings and not so easily distracted as I, went directly to the free weights. I cranked up the treadmill and commenced to sweat. When I sweat, my nose runs. I carry a large attractive paper towel with me for such emergencies.

I had been on the treadmill for a couple of miles when I felt the need to wipe my nose. I slowed the treadmill to 3.5 mph and reached for the paper towel. As soon as I grasped it, I dropped it at my feet, and without thinking (have I mentioned that I do a lot of that?), I reached down to retrieve it. Before I could say Jack Robinson, I was head over heels behind the treadmill, jammed up again the wall with my legs in the air. I was scrambling to get up before anyone saw me when all of a sudden all the young men in the gym were hovering over me saying "Are you ok? Did you hurt yourself?"

Oh, I was hurt all right. My pride was mortally wounded, but before I could be overcome with humiliation, the image of me rolling like a tumble bug over the end of the treadmill struck me as hilarious. I started laughing so hard I could barely clamber back on the horse that had thrown me. But clamber on, I did. I cranked that dude up and finished off another mile in fine fashion. No way a piece of machinery was going to get the best of me.

Later, my sister told me that she had seen me reflected in the mirror, a flash of brown and black kind of floating head over heels over the back of the treadmill, and thought to herself "She doesn't look hurt." And kept on lifting weights.

Let me hasten to add that the owner of the gym had told my sister and me repeatedly about the failsafe mechanisms on the treadmill. If we wanted to stop, we were to hit stop (and all our data would be saved); however, in anticipation of an accident, we should always hook up the kill switch. In that case, should we ever have a misstep, or --heaven forbid--fall down, the machine would stop immediately. Did I have the kill switch hooked up? Of course not.

Today we returned to the gym, and I assured everyone, now that I am no longer anonymous, that I was completely uninjured. Just to prove it, I trotted three miles at slightly under 4 mph. Did I have the kill switch hooked up? Of course I didn't.

(PS--Photo is from years ago when I actually could run a 10 K. Fortunately, there is no photo of me upended behind the treadmill.)

---Penne J. Laubenthal

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