Please Make the Hurting Stop

Did any of you watch Eek the Cat? And, if you did, do you remember The Terrible Thunderlizards?

I apologize in advance for the horrible quality. There are no good recordings of this show, just old ones taped from the TV back in the early 90's.



See the little caveman? The one who suffered? His catch phrase was always, "When will the hurting stop?" Which as a child, I found utterly hilarious.

Adulthood, however, has taught me that the hurting indeed does not end, even if your friends aren't accidentally trying to kill you.

Example? When I made Mom her mother's day dinner, I left the kitchen, walked over to her knitting spot on the couch, held out my arms, and said, "These second-degree burns symbolize my love for you."

But the worst pain comes in a very different form. This is pain that we all try to avoid at all times, even as thousands of health professionals urge us to indulge, to allow this pain to wash over us. This is the pain that is thought to make us live better, longer lives.

I speak, of course, of exercise.

It has never made sense to me that some people just crawl out of bed in the morning and say, "You know what would be great? Running for no reason!" Or, "Hey, I'll lift heavy objects just to put them back down, not because I'm moving! Weights, here I come!"

This makes no sense.

In the World of Laura, you run because you are about to be killed and eaten, whether you are pursued by bear, lion, zombie, or Jack the Ripper.

In the World of Laura, you lift heavy things because you can--but only when they need lifted. Like shelving books, moving boxes around so Mom can decorate the house for various seasons, or so that you can vacuum under your bed because the dust looks pretty thick down there.

In the World of Laura, sweating is avoided. Why? Because sweating is gross.

In the World of Laura, the only thing more fun than cooking is eating.

See the problem?

Back before I became Mostly Dead, I used to eat lots and burn it off through sheer force of will. All that stress increased my heart rate--it was like cardio without the treadmill. But then I got asthma and my lungs said, "Meh, do what you want, we're just going to sit here and rest," causing me to do the same.

A few weeks ago, I made the mistake of looking at myself as I was dressing.

Never do that.

Nothing good can come of it.

Really, I mean that.

So I decided it was time to do something, because the average American, according to some TV doctor who probably got his statistics from Wikipedia, gains ten pounds a year.

Slowly, we become fatter and fatter, until we resemble giant puddings.

I have made myself a goal. I shall not ever allow myself to go above a certain size. No 31 for me. Nope. I will stick to by 29's, perhaps even slowly making it back down to my 27's because that's where I ought to be.

I do this because I don't want to spend money on pants that are long enough--it gets expensive. And the way it's going, I'll have to buy all new pants. All. New. Which is lots of yarn money down the drain. I want pants because they look trendy, not because I'm too fat to wear the perfectly nice ones I've got.

I have started running.

This is unpleasant, because I most certainly sweat while I'm doing it, and sweating is gross. Also, because my legs kill me if I run on hard surfaces, I have to run around our property, which isn't so much level. So that's annoying.

I run now. I do about a mile every time, although I find this nauseating because I get very overheated.

Thursday, something happened. I was running and I felt this pain, right? And I thought, "Whatever, Laura, you knew this hurt when you signed up for it," so I kept running.

When I finished, I went back inside and pulled off my running shoes, and noticed something else.

I was a real-life Nike commercial. Or Gatorade, whichever fits.

How so? I had caused myself bodily harm by running, and while still bleeding, I ran, making myself look like a hard-core runner instead of the wimpy girl I am.

What happened? My skin was too delicate for my shoe, and it cut the back of my heel. It wasn't a blister, the shoe actually cut me. And it wasn't even sharp.

I am such a wimp.

If I live through the next mile, you'll hear from me again...