Had a dentist appointment this morning to fix a tooth that I’d cracked hunk off of a few years ago. It went spectacularly well! Completely painless, and I can’t even tell that the doc did anything at all to that tooth, which is a nice surprise. I expected to be in some discomfort from the jaw-stretching and tooth-spackling, but there’s no sign that anything went on at all.
Because, in actuality, nothing did go on.
Nope. No dentist. I pulled up to the door at 10:03 (just 3 minutes late! Perhaps a new record!), full of determination to get this thing over with, and was a tad surprised to see a ‘closed’ sign hung thereupon.
Wha?
Not being one to believe everything she reads, naturally I had to test the door to see if it was indeed locked, or if perhaps the staff had simply forgotten to flip the sign and open the blinds. Gave that door a good jigglin’, in case maybe someone was in the back washing out dental prods and couldn’t hear my initial gentle rattle. Alas, no one came. And I was so CERTAIN that my appointment was for 05 March at 10 a.m.!
What had happened? Had the been some kind of office-wide emergency that had taken them all so violently ill that none of them could call me and let me know not to scurry on over there (mere minutes late!)? Well now, if that was the case, I’d be disappointed, because I do like the all-girl staff, and would hate to have anything overly untoward happen to them.
Thinking quickly, I dug the appointment card out of my purse to double-check the time and day, certain in the knowledge that I was at the correct place at the correct hour, about to glory in my responsibility and ability to be where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there.
Alas, my confidence was short-lived, for the appointment card with its very helpful little ‘peel n’ stick to you calendar’ tooth-shaped reminder thingie CLEARLY states that I am to be at the dentist….NEXT Thursday.
At 8.
I’m welcoming any and all possible explanations about how I could have gotten it so terribly wrong.
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In the ‘ways I can prove I’m certifiably insane’ topic category, there’s this:
Not only have I decided to do the ‘hundred push-ups in 6 weeks’ challenge, I have also unofficially joined the ‘200 situps in 6 weeks’ plan.
Yessir, by the end of April ’09 there’s a fair chance I might be able to pump out throat-swellingly large amounts of displays of physical prowess, much to the amazement of me, myself, and I.
Of course, to begin, one must determine one’s current physical fitness level. It’s helpful then that each challenge has a means of assisting one in the determination thereof, and provides useful graphic representations of ‘the perfect sit-up’ and ‘the perfect push-up.’ All one needs to do is to do as many of these perfect exercises as one can, then consult a chart that will tell one at what level one should being the challenge. What could be easier?
Off I went then this morning to assess my fitness level insofar as these two items were concerned. Getting into pushup position was easy! Dropping down to the ‘perfect pushup’ base position was….not so easy. Seriously. I had trouble letting gravity work. Uh-oh. My arms quivered just getting my torso down to a level halfway to the ground (the ‘perfect pushup preferred penultimate position’ being FULLY on the ground), and so I felt it would be a good time to take the bod back up to the starting point.
I did 8 half-perfect pushups in this manner. 8, and each one was harder than the last one. Disheartening, to say the least. While I’ve never been big on upper-body strength (having failed the ‘bar hang’ every year in the Presidential Fitness Test), I’d thought that at LEAST I’d be able to crank out a dozen wuss-ups. Consulting the ‘status chart’ on the website was the bitter icing on the cake of disgust, for I, with my abysmal performance, am rated a ONE. On a scale of 7, I am a ONE. There is nowhere lower to go. I lose. As a ONE, it is suggested that I start off with girlie pushups, in which one decreases by 50% the force necessary to execute good form in the simple act of doing the pushups on one’s knees. How terribly degrading.
But necessary, because as a ONE, the number of perfect pushups I would need to execute in the first sets start at 2. Let's recap: Two perfect pushups is more than twice the number I can do in the full-on pushup position.
My soul sags at this news. My determination; however, is blazing. This thing will not beat me. I shall NOT go into later middle age a slowly weakening ball of blubber. LIFE WILL NOT DEFEAT ME! Doesn’t help that my wonderful lovely partner in crime, Biff, did 25 shockingly perfect pushups in about 10 seconds, stopping only because his sternum hurt (or some such bizarre reason). Read that again: 25, and he wasn’t even out of breath. To say I was jealous would be to liken a moth to a dragon, baby.
Oh, and the sit-ups? I’m barely out of the ‘poor’ category, having done 39 ‘perfect crunches’ using every last little shred of willpower and sphincter control I possess. I’m hoping that somehow Biff gets an attack of ab paralysis and totally flames out on this one, because manohman it’ll be tough to live down his dual superiority.
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And now you’re up-to-date. Have a grand day.
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