Right Hand Red, Left Foot Green

I'll bet you know what that's from. That's right folks, Twister, the game that ties you up in knots. That's also the name of an exercise class that I've started taking.

No wait, that's just the way your body feels during the exercise class...and the tied up in knots part is what you feel for days afterwards.

You read that right me lovies no need to break out the reading glasses and call in the family to point at the screen and laugh. Me. An exercise class. Me. Who would have thought? Well certainly NOT ME...

Yes, yes, it was me who, if asked to go work out at a gym, would loudly profess "I don't believe in public humiliation."

And yes, it was me who swore she wouldn't be caught dead trying to keep up while sweating with a room full of shapely bodies. Bodies that don't actually need to sweat to the oldies.

Yes, yes, yes, I would put working out in public right up there with having your teeth pulled and trying on bathing suits - I thought of it as just that painful.

Yes that was me. Ah but how quickly the treadmills turn for that was me then and scarily, this is me now. And I've discovered crow goes down much easier with a little Crystal Light.

This is me now, in all my glory and all its jigglyness, poured into a pair of sweats huffing, puffing and flailing around the room and actually enjoying - quite profusely I might add - the torture being meted out to me and 10 others. I think I might need some intense psychotherapy folks because I'm not quite sure just who I am anymore.

And, if I am to be at all fair in giving you a complete picture, I must give you these bits of information, for it would be slightly untruthful and less than forthcoming not to. I am participating in this bit of human degradation at a gym in a church. This is an exercise class with co-workers, all of whom I know and love. And this is a beginners weight training class - well, supposedly for beginners but none of us are buying that bridge.

Now, with all that said, it is still a gym. And all that aside, there are still witnesses in the room. And, all things considered, this is still to be filed under the category titled public humiliation.

Now you would think when he started the class with how many? jumping jacks I would have run Forrest, run screaming out of the room. Nope. I obediently began to jump. If you could call it that - looked more like jack. I thought dude is this high school? It has that same utterly embarrassing feel to it. The instructor looks like my old high school gym teacher - thick mustache, big muscles and deep voice, except this time it's actually a man.

Then I hear the sound. I try to place it. Kind of sounds like hands clapping slowly. Who is that, is someone keeping beat???

Wait.

Oh. My. Word.

That. Is the sound. Of my thighs. Slapping together. Seriously? Oh yes. Gulp. This could get ugly. Truthfully, it already is quite ugly. Uber. UBAR.

Gratefully no one can hear the mini-ovation over the grunting and gasping for air. Either that or everyone is just too kind to laugh in my face.

The next hour proves to be one that shows - no matter how strong, healthy, in shape I might foolishly dream I am - I am not. I am a sad sack of jelly fish and every muscle in my body is at that very moment screaming for me to be taken down by a licensed professional at close range. And the gelatinous things that used to be my legs and previously had held me up so stoically now feel like I am being cattle-prodded and tasered simultaneously and the traitors have abandoned ship. They've mutinied along with my lungs and every other cell in my body.

Once class is over we look around taking a mental body count as we smile at each other. I hear myself pant and wheeze. I take a swig of water hoping to hide my asthmatic sounding breathing. I wheeze louder. And then I praise God I made it through without passing out or passing gas and wobble out the door. And look forward to next week for more of the same.

Sicko.