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 Nordic Track First published 2/12/1997 Sadly, there were two bad things about going to the health club. The first was the horrible dance music they constantly played there. I don't really have a joke about this but I just have to mention it because, man oh man, was that music ever bad. The other bad thing was the ugly multi-coloured work out pants the bodybuilders wore. You know the kind I'm talking about -- big, balloony, clown-coloured pants. I have a theory about these pants. I think big musclemen like to fight, only they're so scary that no one wants to fight with them. So, they deliberately wear the stupidest-looking, ugliest pants they can get, hoping to provoke some fool into making a snide comment so they can beat the tar out of him. Like I said, those multi-coloured pants sure are handsome! Anyway, since I've stopped going to the health club, I decided I'd better get myself a home exercise machine. Now, if you think about it, an exercise machine is a pretty strange device. Most machines try to help you get something done with a minimum amount of effort. Exercise machines, on the other hand, try to help you get nothing done with as much effort as possible. I bet if you tried to explain the idea of a stationary bicycle to the guy who invented the normal bicycle, he'd punch you. There are a million home exercise systems out there. All you have to do to invent one is pick a part of the body and add "izer" or "flex" to it. Abflex. The Abdominizer. Nippleflex. The Earlobizer Gold Pro. (It helps if you tack the words "Gold" and/or "Pro" onto the end.) After a lot of shopping around, I finally decided to get a Nordic Track. Doesn't the name Nordic Track conjure up images of blond and fit people, cheerfully burning away calories? I bet they would have liked to have called this machine the "Aryan Track," but that might have been too scary. Besides, it's hard to design a machine that lets you work out by goose-stepping. The Nordic Track comes in a big bulky box with no handles. I lost ten pounds just getting it up to my apartment. The Nordic track is supposed to fold up, so you can store it in a closet. After twenty minutes, though, I still couldn't figure out how to fold it up. I did figure out that if you fold it the right way it turns into either a dinosaur or a killer robot. The whole experience gave me an idea for another exercise device: the Rubik's Track. Trying to fit it into your closet is the workout. It's too bad that famed Dutch illustrator M.C. Escher died back in 1970. He could have invented his own exercise product: the M.C. Escher Stairmaster. Two people can work out on the same machine: one on top, and the other hanging at an impossible angle underneath. Hopefully, using my new machine, I will become so fit and healthy that I'll need another machine to help me get a little fatter and a little less tone. Luckily, I already own one of these devices. It's called a "sofa" and I even have the optional "coffee table" attachment which holds my nachos and beer while I use it.
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