7T
DENTON (AP) — And
here I sit, I thought,
bubbling and frothing in
this tub like a turnip in a
pot. Isn’t it amazing the
torture people put
themselves through in the
name of self-
improvement?
Now, the hot tub was
the best part of this
particular masochistic
undertaking. Before that
came an hour of aerobics,
led by a nubile nymphet
named Raney. If you’ve
ever been in a health club,
you know the type. After
two-and-a-half hours of
continuous step-kick-step-
ball-change, the pony, the
swim, chasse and “now
doubles!” her hair hasn’t
moved, her makeup is
undisturbed and she still
has breath to sing along
with the music and yell
“whoo!” a lot.
I, in the meantime, was
doing the shin splints roll
across the carpet and my
friend Cheryl was into the
stumble kick half-time to
“Crocodile Rock.” Our
hair had moved. In fact it
had migrated down to
stick to our teeth. Our
makeup looked as though
it had been applied during
the cyclone scene in “The
Wizard of Oz.”
“Toto, I don’t think
we’re in Kansas
anymore,” I muttered,
wiping eyeliner off my
chin. I cursed under my
breath, when I could find
breath.
Even before that, we’d
spent an hour attached to
various shiny machines
we think will eventually
make us look like Cher in
our leotards. Karen, who
owns the club and has
vowed to make us mere
shadows of our former
selves, is hacked off
because we’re not wasting
away to nothingness. “No
one doesn’t lose weight in
my club,” she informed
us and promptly tripled
our torture time on the
i ?
shiny machines. Then she
took us off everything
that’s good to eat. Even
Diet Coke.
Is there life without
sauces, red meat and The
Real Thing? I doubt it, but
I just signed a check for
another healthy year,
despite the fact I just
signed healthy checks to
enroll my husband in
college and my dog in
remedial obedience
school. “No pain, no
gain” is no truer than
when you’re pushing to
get that last lap out of an
overexercised bank
account.
And this is only one
example of the self
torment I call self-
improvement.
“Whatever happened
to painless dentistry?” I
recall asking my gum
specialist the other day as
I lay in drugged semi
consciousness in his
reclinochair. “It’s an
urban myth,” he replied,
plunging both hands, plus
some knives, needles, a
small air hammer and
what felt like the Hoover
Dam into my mouth.
This little venture into
oral self-flagellation had
something to do with a
receding gumline. Far be
it from me to have bald
roots. So I allowed part of
the roof of my mouth to
be transplanted to the
lower front and the entire
left half of my mouth to be
sheared and quilted.
“Toto, I don’t think
we’re in Kansas
anymore,” I groaned
groggily as I staggered
from his office with a cast
in my mouth and a
checkbook that looks like
Cher in a leotard.
People do lots of other
really awful things to their
bodies in order to make
them better. Take the
permanent wave. The last
one I got was called a
Uniperm. It involved
having a young woman
with spikes on one side of
her head drizzle
odoriferous liquids into
my ears to fry. When the
curlers came out, I looked
at my poodled head in the
mirror.
“Toto,” I said to my
reflection. “Which way to
the wizard?”
Donna Fielder is
assistant managing
editor for features at
the Denton Record-
Chronicle.
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