It's just a hunch, but last night she convinced me to take an exercise class at the Y called Body Pump. Now, with a title like that, you might conclude that I was complicit in my wife's devious plot. How could I not know this class was a killer?
First, most of her accomplices were women, and every man knows that women work out way harder than men. "But it's my first time taking this class too," she intoned by way of an alibi when I told her it was insanely hard.
The exercise hour made use of dumbbells and barbells with varying weights and repetitive lifts and curls at slow and fast paces. Many times, I unashamedly stopped -- watching in envy as everyone around me, my wife included, pumped on, barely breaking a sweat.
The instructor was deceptively evil. A small blond with impressive guns, yelling commands over one of those televangelist style, over the ear wireless microphones. I could only make out every other word, but I'm pretty sure she called me a weakling. Or maybe she said we were peaking. I'm not sure. I could barely hear because the blood had rushed from my head, and I couldn't see her because my rising body temperature was fogging my glasses.
I'm waiting for that post-workout soreness that novices feel in muscles seldom used. And I'm beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, my wife didn't have murder on her mind. Perhaps she's simply hoping the pain makes it just a little bit harder for me to pick up those buffalo wings I love so dearly, and as a result, I'll be around a lot longer for her to torture.