I have been completely unmotivated to hit the gym. I was dragged out there yesterday by the convincing words of Gym Trainee and Mr. W. Today, I ditched it again. You’d think my lack of desire to be “good” would make me less of a hypocrite, but it doesn’t.

Yesterday at the gym, Gym Trainee said off-handedly, “I guess I’ll do abs at home while I’m waiting for dinner.” So around 8:15 p.m., I text messaged my 11 year old godson, Gym Trainee’s son: is ur mom doing ab exercises? she said she was gonna do them tonite.
I received an unenthusiastic response: she said she guess so
I decided to make him my partner in crime, to get his mom to step it up. So I bribed him. make her stick 2 her word & ill bring u the 3rd evangelion dvd 2morrow. I’d gotten him hooked on the award-winning anime series just last month with the first two DVDs.
It worked. I received simply: ok
Some time later, I got a report: she’s on her third set of smiley faces. That’s a lower abdominal exercise where you lay on your back and swing your extended legs in the air in a low arc, like you’re drawing huge smilies with your toes. It sounds easy until you do ’em right.
I instigated. thats it???
I received: she did smiley faces crunches. ya she said shes tired.
It wasn’t long before I got a voice mail from his mother. “YOUR CHILD,” she said in a mock hostile voice, “is about to be HOMELESS!” And then she laughed and hung up.

This morning she came by my courtroom for a visit. Apparently how the boy got her to do the ab work was by waving his cell phone around where she lounged on her back watching TV and threatening, “I can send a video of you doing just that — nothing.” Ah, cell phone technology. Gotta love it. I may have a crappy work ethic right now, but I’m a dedicated trainer.