Feeling like The Blob in the movie ""Heavyweights"" isn't exactly an experience I want repeated, so I have decided it's time to lose a little weight.
Maybe I should explain how I came to be used as a human trampoline. For my friend's birthday last week, a group of us went laser-tagging. Since there were only four of us, we couldn't play with just our group and had to join a kid's birthday party.
We were suiting up to go in when a little boy wandered up to me. Not watching where he was going, he ran into my leg. He bounced off slightly stunned, but soon began giggling and ran into my leg again. He began yelling ""bouncy bouncy!"" and running into my leg repeatedly. Once he had collapsed in a giggle fit, his embarrassed father walked him away.
The day after my ""Blob"" episode, I went down to the SERF to hit the elliptical for a while. I thought a quick workout would give me a confidence boost, but things only got worse.
The cardio room was packed as far as the eye could see. No bike, elliptical or treadmill was left unmanned. I was even more disheartened to see that many of these girls weren't working out at all.
Most were on the phone or reading, and in one case a girl had actually fallen asleep on her bike. It was bad enough that all of them were skinnier than me, but did they have to go and rub it in by drooling on the machine? That's just rude.
With the SERF out of the picture, I headed to the grocery store. I figured eating healthier could help me shed a few pounds.
But I had made another mistake in my get-thin-quick scheme: I had gone to the grocery store hungry. It started with some rice that sounded good for dinner. Then I saw some brats and couldn't resist. Soon my cart was piled high with pints of ice cream, frozen pizzas and near-expired marshmallow fluff. My only success seemed to be the ice cream, which was 30 percent less fat.
I was getting desperate. I couldn't do this alone, seeing as I apparently have no desire to eat healthy and no patience for the gym. There was only one person I could turn to now: Richard Simmons.
Months earlier, while digging through boxes in my parents' basement, I stumbled across ""Dance Your Pants Off: Sweating to the Oldies 3,"" and my personal favorite—for title alone—""Richard Simmons and the Silver Foxes.""
I now found these treasures and broke them out again. I donned some spandex and a sweatband and started my journey to become one of the lovely Silver Foxes.
Things were going well—until my roommates came home. My buns of steel melted away with my confidence as the girls erupted into giggles. When I turned off the video and started making myself a Slimfast shake for lunch, they only laughed harder.
I was demoralized. I sat sadly at the kitchen table, blowing bubbles in my disgustingly thick milk. My friend Becky showed up soon after and began ridiculing me for my weight paranoia. She went through the stereotypical speech about how I should love myself the way I am, we are all beautiful in our own way, blah blah blah.
Nothing was helping. I was about to eat some sympathy ice cream when I heard a bass beat. Becky had turned on her computer and began blasting ""Baby Got Back."" I couldn't help myself; I began to boogie.
Two hours of extreme dance-partying later, all my weight worries were gone. No one makes a girl feel special like Sir Mix-a-Lot. Plus, learning the Cotton Eyed Joe, Thriller and the Marcarena probably burned more than one cup of ice cream, and believe it or not was way better than becoming a Silver Fox.
So even if a three-year-old had mistaken my lovely curves for blubber, I need only remember that there is someone out there who will want some 'cause I got buns, hun.
If you want to have a dance party, especially one that involves Dance Your Pants Off! with Richard Simmons, e-mail Megan at mcorbett2@wisc.edu.
