The Gods of Fate Have Spoken

Yesterday I got on the scale for my weekly check-in. No change. Not a single pound lost in over 2 weeks. I haven't changed my eating habits, and I have been riding the stationary bike every morning, rather than every other morning. No dice.

This really sucks.

Last night, I was getting ready to ride the bike. I usually skip the morning ride on the weekends. The bike is in the same room as the cats' litter box, and it was smelling especially rank, so I removed the offending material and took it outside to the garbage can. As I was walking back to the house, I thought to myself, "It's a beautiful night. Why am I riding that bike inside for exercise when I could be working out outside?"

The answer was, "Beacuse your mountain bike has two flat tires and you get shinsplints when you run."

So I went back inside and started my ride. The new iPod was cranked up and AC/DC was blasting into my ears. At this point I continued my inner dialogue, listening in as the angel on my left shoulder and the devil on my right argued about my weight loss progress. Here is an edited transcript of the conversation my shoulder angel and shoulder devil had while I was riding the bike:

SA: "If we want to jumpstart our weight loss again, we should start running."

SD: "I hate to run. Besides, we get shinsplints."

SA: "But we will get back on track with our weight loss. You can update your geeky little Excel spreadsheet and start posting the graphs on our blog again."

SD: "That's true. But my shins will still hurt."

SA: "You'll get over it. We can run for the same amount of time that we ride the bike and it will burn more Calories."

SD: "Yeah. My ass is still pretty fat. Running will get that tightened up."

SA: "Plus you can use that new website you found to trace your route and figure out how far we run. It even calculates how many calories you burn."

SD: "That website is pretty cool."

SA: "Exactly. Plus, if we get in the habit of going early in the morning now, it won't be so stifling hot in the summer. We can start before the sun even comes up."

SD: "The summers here are a bitch. Whoever decided to move us to Florida from Michigan was a sadistic bastard."

SA: "You said the same thing about the sadistic bastard who thought it would be fun to live on campus at Michigan State so we had to walk to class in the winter."

SD: "Yeah, he is a masochist. Son-of-a-bitch either burns us alive or freezes our nutsack off."

SA: "I'd rather be hot. At least you can turn the AC on."

SD: "Until a hurricane knocks out the electricity for a week."

SA: "Don't change the subject. We are going to start running Monday morning, okay?"

SD: "Fine. But in the summer if it's too hot, we're coming back in here to ride the bike instead."

SA: "Deal."

****CRACKKKK!!!!!!*****

SD: "What the f*ck was that??!!??

The "crack" was the sound of the pedal of my stationary bike breaking off, flush with the body of the bike. Its not a replacable part. I checked it out, and short of using an arc welder to reattach the pedal, the bike is toast. I guess the angel on my shoulder wanted to keep the devil honest, so he broke the pedal.

That sadistic bastard.


UPDATE: I was able to use the "I'm starting to run tomorrow" excuse as a reason to get this iPod accessory: