Another reminder of how hopelessly unfit I am:

Mother Dearest woke me up at some ungodly hour of the morning today with the crazed idea of a ‘refreshing’ early morning bike ride. Not the wake-up call I was expecting but hey, that’s what you get for encouraging a notoriously budget-watching parent to buy a new bicycle, on sale – naturally – at our local friendly-neighbourhood-department-store. I swear if it weren’t for sales we’d never buy anything in this household. And a big kiss to whoever invented the factory outlet.

So anyway, I’d only gotten… what? Four, five hours of sleep the night before? Playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Greatest Hits’ album until the wee hours of the morning is not particularly conducive to a perky rise-and-shine outlook on a random day during the Christmas holidays. Needless to say, being greeted with a dubious opportunity to firm up those Thanksgiving ham thighs with an activity I had not attempted since I was eight years old did not put the much-desired spring in my step or the motivation to get up from my smushy, comfortable fortress of a bed. However, MD hung on with the persistence of a pit bull terrier on some hapless victim’s leg, going as far as opening the blinds on my bedroom window (aargh, sunlight … I’m melting) in a bid to force me into the world of waking. So it came to pass that I went bike riding with my mother on a weekday morning.

I took her to the lake-cum-pond a block away from our house and proceeded to do lazy laps around it, in the hope that it would pass for some semblance of exercise. Alas, it was not to be, as MD deemed it too risky after my near crash into a man walking his fluffy white dog and my propensity to take sharp swerves dangerously close to the many prickly bushes and flocks of ducks around the lake (do ducks even come in flocks?). But cut me some slack here, it’s been over half a decade since I’d got on the damn thing! Sure you never forget how to ride a bicycle after you learn to, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can still ride it without falling down…

So repetitive circles around the lake was scrapped. MD then dragged me to the oval where there was a ‘perfectly good bike track to ride on’! I’m reluctantly propelling myself along the little dirt road, narrowly avoiding the women with strollers and fitness freaks making their way to the tennis courts when suddenly there’s that funny feeling in my legs – (like my muscles are going, “Whoa, exercise! It’s been a hell of a while since THIS has happened, dude!”) – my face goes red and my sweat glands career into overdrive. Pretty soon my breathing is getting ragged and my feet on the pedals begin to slow down ever so gradually – until they stop altogether and the only thing stopping me from falling down is the two seconds of momentum-enhanced balance I have left. I basically collapse onto the frame of the bike and my thighs are screaming bloody murder. The annoying little voice inside my head’s whining, feeeel the buuuuuuurn on a loop like some tacky aerobics video gone seriously wrong. Then I’m panting, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” and you know what the sad part was? There I was, struggling to pull myself up what barely passes as a hill on a track with an incline of about two inches as MD is merrily pedalling along, passing me with the speed and efficiency of a yuppie power-walker. How embarrassing is it to be out-cycled by your own mother who is like two and a half times your age and half your size? I really need to get out more.

So come on, come on, welcome to the Little Miss Nobody show! Tickets are free to whoever wants them and drinks are on me! Oh, and before I forget, check your dignity at the door, ‘cause you sure ain’t gonna be needing it for this debacle!

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