Gym Shorts

Richard Simmons was in town last night and nobody told me. NOBODY TOLD ME! Out of all of the millions of exercise videos I’ve watched (notice that I didn’t say “millions of exercise videos I’ve exercised to”), his are my favorite because he’s bubbly and funny and flamboyant. He came up with Deal-A-Meal. Meals on cards? Excellent idea. Have you ever played Go Fish? Where you have such an enormous hand of cards that you can’t hold them all? I have a feeling that is how I would use Deal-A-Meal. I can eat small meals, as long as I get several meals a day. There’s a lot of goodness in Richard Simmons. He visits his clients, he inspires hordes of middle-aged, overweight women, and he honestly believes in his life mission to help people get fit and healthy.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that Alyne would like Richard Simmons. It probably had something to do with his sequined tank top (Alyne really likes sparkles and spangles and sequins and prisms); or maybe it was his crazy hair, or perhaps there was a song on “Sweatin’ With the Oldies,” “Disco Sweat,” or “Boogie Down the Pounds” that Alyne liked. About a decade ago, we decided that a copy of one of his exercise videos would be a great gift for her birthday.

What a crappy idea.

She opened up the package, sat it on the counter, and moved on to the next gift. And that was the last bit of attention that she ever paid to Richard Simmons. That video still exists in Alyne’s video closet, still wrapped in cellophane, right next to her copy of “Herbie: Fully Loaded”, starring Lindsay Lohan. Alyne hasn’t watched that either.

I guess she has a right to ignore that Richard Simmons video. I’d be pissed too, if somebody gave me exercise equipment as a gift. Actually, the last Valentine’s Day that I was married, my then-husband gave me the gift of running shoes. Yuck. It’s no wonder she doesn’t divorce us all.

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