I couldn’t bear the thought of paying an extra $100 to have my new treadmill brought from the driveway into my house. “I can do it myself,” I thought. Then I saw the eight-foot-tall box and what was written on it: 280 pounds.
The next day Mark came to the rescue, bringing over two of his powerful neighbors who wrestled the monster into my basement for twenty dollars a head. Later, over an ice cream sundae, I was riveted by Mark’s stories about these guys, particularly Thomas. Around sixty and missing several teeth as a result of a well-placed fist or two, Thomas almost died a few years ago of electrocution. He was in the process of stealing a 440-watt copper line from an abandoned warehouse, whacking at it with his axe while standing on damp concrete. After a week in the hospital his next stop was jail. When he got out, he returned to the scene of the crime and succeeded in making off with the cable by turning off the power first. One year Thomas was going through an acrimonious divorce, and it was looking like his wife was going to get the house. So what did Thomas do but rent a bulldozer and raze the place. He’s an avid country-western fan — a songwriter, in fact — who has complained to Mark about his inability to get recognized for his talents. “I’d like to hear some of your songs,” Mark asked once. “You can’t,” replied Thomas. “They’re in my head. If anyone hears them, they’ll steal them.”
Back to middle-America where, as you may recall from a paragraph ago, my treadmill had found its way into my basement. Unwilling to pay the additional $200 to have it assembled (another “I can do it myself”) I spent hours doing a sort of hardware ballet: standing on tiptoe with one knee lifted to support the unwieldy console, I connected three sets of wires with my right hand while lowering the unit onto two sticky-up metal bars with the crook of my arm, and thwapping a bolt into place with my hip. I went into all kinds of contortions to get screws into hard-to-reach places:
Finished at last, I flipped the switch, and — nada. I read the directions again. I’d done everything right. All I could think was that a connection wasn’t secure, so I disassembled the entire bloody thing and replugged and reassembled everything. No luck. I re-re-reread the instructions until I found a small aside at the very end where no sane person would ever look. In submicroscopic letters was this: “Unit will not operate if you don’t put in that cheap little plastic red thing that is so inconsequential-looking that you thought it was trash so you left it in the box and were about to throw it out…”
Here’s my rationale for getting a treadmill: Going to the gym is a pain because of all that exercise it requires just to walk the mile there and back. Plus it’s always closed when I want it to be open, and it’s of no use to me on days when I have only half an hour free.
But as it turns out, the joys of treadmill ownership derive from entirely different sources. A world of possibilities opens when you’re bored and no one can see you. Within minutes my walks started to get silly. I sashayed and slunk and swiveled and skipped. I sped the machine way up to see how fast I could walk before I had to run (which looks sillier than it sounds). I slowed it way down and stood still until it dumped me off the back. I put on some 60s music and head-banged my way along for a while. I talked to myself about events of the day. I even tried doing a reel, which I don’t recommend.
I really hope my treadmill doesn’t end up on craigslist.org next month, with the same description they all have: “Used only eight times.”
