WIT STOP

wit stop Somnambulistic Aerobics Just Won't Cut the Mustard When It Comes to Exercise

My wife suggested an excursion to Petrified Forest National Park. I was delighted. A trip to the Petrified Forest in northeastern Arizona, I thought, would be entertaining and educational. It would be an opportunity to enjoy the multicolored hills of the region and to wonder at the 225-million-year-old trees preserved by nature. Instead it was to be a lecture on my laid-back life-style. "These trees in many ways remind me of you," my wife said.

"Really?" I said. "Because they are sturdy, strong, undaunted by the varied, often vicious, buffeting of nature?"

"No," she said. "Because they never exercise, either."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I'm saying that these trees never exercise and look at them."

I said, "They're beautiful."

She said, "But they've turned to stone."

"Are you trying to tell me they would be alive and oozing healthy sap today if they had gotten up every morning and touched their roots 10 times with their branches?"

"Don't be facetious," she said.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Did you bring me to this gorgeous natural phenomenon just so I could recognize myself among these other fossils?"

"I'm just trying to show you, in a pleasant and graphic way, that you should exercise more. It's good for your health."

"And who did you confer with on this? A doctor or a tree surgeon?"

"Now you're being petulant," she said.

"I am not. I must confess, this is the most elaborate self-help sermon I've ever received. It's flattering."

She said, "I thought it might make an impression. I'm concerned about you. All you do is sit around the house all day."

"I own it; that's why I sit around it. If I sit around other places it's called 'vagrancy.'"

"You know what I mean. You have to do something physical, something to get your juices flowing, your heart pumping."

"I do somnambulistic aerobics," I said.

She said, "What's that?"

I said, "I toss and turn in my sleep."

"Very funny," she said, meaning it wasn't very funny.

"I do exercise," I insisted. "I play tennis.

She said, "No, you don't."

I said, "I do. I play every Tuesday and Thursday with the guys."

She said, "They're not guys; they're geezers."

I was terribly embarrassed when I heard that. It's rather insensitive to do old age cracks standing among tree trunks and fossils that are more than 200 million years young.

I said, "What's the difference? I still play tennis."

She said, "No, you don't. I've seen your matches. You stand still and watch the three other geezers play tennis."

I had no idea she was that perceptive about my game.

"All right," I said, beginning to weaken, "what would you have me do to avoid premature petrification?"

She said, "Almost anything that has to be done standing up."

So she was going to play hardball, huh.

I said, "Give me a worthwhile for instance."

She said, "How about if we both join an aerobic exercise class."

"Absolutely not," I said. "Our love has endured many things through the years. It will not survive us standing side by side in leotards."

"You could jog," she said.

"I hate joggers. They're skinny, and they're smug."

She said, "You could walk."

"I hate joggers. Walking's the same thing only it takes longer."

"Then how about an exercise device. You can get healthy in the privacy of your own home. A bike or a treadmill."

I said, "All right, you win. Your homily on health has been ingenious and effective. For my next birthday you can buy me a motorized exercise treadmill one with all the knobs and buttons and things."

"But will you use it?" my wife asked.

"I promise I'll use it. I don't want you to be married to a solidified tree."

She said, "You'll be glad you did."

"I know I will," I said. "Your concern for me is touching, and your advice is always right. However, I do have one condition."

"Which is?"

"Next year, I get to pick the excursion that we go on."

"Fair enough," she said.

So, being a man of my word, I do put in a half hour a day on the treadmill. But I do also put in at least a half hour a day leafing through Arizona Highways tour books looking for a place called "Lazy Slob Lake."

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