Dave Barry: Stay Fit And Healthy Until You’re Dead

Although most people think of Peewee Football as a “kid’s game,” more and more fitness-oriented urban professionals with a love of physical contact and a sincere desire to lie about their ages have discovered that there’s no better way to get rid of frustrations than to lean down, take a handoff (by force, if necessary) from a 48-pound quarterback, and plow through an entire team of 8-year-old boys on the way to a 97-yard touchdown run. Not only is it fun, but nutritionists (never mind which ones) tell us that the average 40-year-old male burns off ten extra calories for each child clinging to his ankles!

One word of caution here: If any other urban professionals have discovered your particular Peewee Football league, you want to make sure they play on your team. This is also a good practice to follow with any unusually large eight-year-old boys.

This is a popular sport wherein you and another person go into a white room, close the door, and attempt to injure each other in the eye. Originally, this was done by whacking a ball against a wall in such a way that it would bounce back and strike the other person, but your highly competitive modern player tends to ignore the ball and lunge straight for his opponent. This is why you first should determine the playing style of your potential opponent and then decide whether you need a “traditional” or a “competitive” racquet.

Professional ice hockey is an ideal way for the entire family to keep fit. There’s something for everyone: the kids will love participating in a loose, freewheeling sport where everybody makes the play-offs and the only activity that is specifically prohibited is selling narcotics to your opponents on the ice; Dad will appreciate the fact that he’s improving his cardiovascular efficiency while at the same time fleeing large vicious toothless stick-wielding men whose frontal lobes have been battered into prune-sized masses of scar tissue; and Mom will be pleased to learn that many of the players come from Canada, so she’ll have a chance to “brush up” on such French phrases as Arretez vous! Je suis une femme! Cest ma balle d’oeil! (“Stop! I am a woman! That is my eyeball!”)

Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. The basic idea is to stand on top of a hummock, squinting into the distance, wager, then saunter over to another hummock, and so on until it’s time to drink. That may not sound like much exercise to you, but in fact every one of these activities except drinking consumes calories, as shown by this scientific chart.

GOLF ACTIVITY CALORIES CONSUMED

Ascending hummock 2.04959

Squinting 0.00035

Wagering 0.00102

Descending hummock 1.84958

Sauntering to next hummock 4.02013

Saying things like “You certainly did bogey that par-six eagle nine-iron wedge, Ted! Ha ha!” 0.00076

Tipping wiry youth who carries equipment 0.00007

Thus we see that in the course of a typical “round” of golf, lasting just four hours, you could burn off enough calories that you could then go out and eat the better part of a slice of Wonder bread with only a minor weight gain.

Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise, provided you remember to follow these simple safety rules:

1. NEVER SWIM IN A LAKE OR RIVER. These contain snapping turtles, which have no natural enemies and therefore grow to the size of motel units, plus they tend to be irritable because they mate for life. Lakes also contain giant lake-dwelling carp, which will watch you from the loomy depths with their buggy eyes, wondering with their tiny carp brains whether you would fit into their mouths.

2. NEVER SWIM IN THE OCEAN. The ocean contains creatures that make the giant lake-dwelling carp look like Bambi.

3. NEVER SWIM IN A SWIMMING POOL. People pee in swimming pools. Oh, I know you don’t pee in swimming pools, and I certainly don’t, but somebody does, which promotes the growth of bacteria, which is why swimming pool owners are always dumping in toxic chemicals, to the point where there is virtually no actual water in the pool, just toxic chemicals and dead bacteria and old pee. This is why, as you may have noticed, the actual owner never gets into the pool. He’s always off pretending he has to do something important involving the filter.

This is probably the quintessential fitness activity for today’s upscale young urban professional, who more often than not will forsake the old-fashioned “three-martini lunch” in favor of going to his posh downtown club, sometimes with an important client, for a hard 45 minutes of pig lifting, followed by a soothing hose-down. More than one major business deal has been forged this way, and the cry “Anyone want to hoist some pork?” is likely to echo down the corridors of power for many years to come.

Anyone who travels a lot on business will tell you that it isn’t easy: eating at a different restaurant every night, having the maid leave little chocolate mints on your pillow, ordering a late-night hors d’oeuvre platter from Room Service while you watch in-room movies such as Nubile Olympic Gymnasts Visit the Petting Zoo, and all the other little hassles and inconveniences that go with life “on the road.” But for the businessperson who’s into physical fitness, there’s yet another problem: finding a way to work out. Here are some suggestions.

Without question, the best way to work out in your hotel room is to turn on the television at the crack of dawn and watch one of the morning workout shows featuring the Obscenely Cheerful Leotard Women. Believe me, there’s no more invigorating way to start the day than to lie in a darkened hotel room and listen to these women leap around and shout encouragement at you until you work up the energy to hurl your hors d’oeuvre tray at the TV screen and order Room Service to send up several orders of pancakes immediately.

Although a few forward-looking hotels now offer a service whereby a staff person from a third-world nation will do your running for you while you are in meetings, in most cases you must still attend to this tiresome chore yourself. This isn’t so bad if your hotel is located in, say, Nebraska, where the only danger you face on the street is that you might trip over a pig. But it can be a real problem if you’re in a large urban area such as New York City, where the vast majority of the people on the street are drug addicts, pickpockets, muggers, rapists, murderers, or partners in advertising agencies.

This doesn’t mean you can’t run: it means you must take steps to protect yourself. A gun will do you no good. It would just be stolen. No, what you need is a safety device I designed especially to solve this problem—the Urban Runner’s Simulated Gaping Chest Wound, which operates on the proven scientific principle that no urban resident will go anywhere near a person who is clearly in desperate need of help.

With your Simulated Gaping Chest Wound strapped on, you can jog anywhere you want in New York City, and you’ll attract no more attention than the apparently deceased persons sprawled on the sidewalks, or the random street lunatics holding lengthy debates with individual oxygen atoms. For extra privacy, you can purchase the optional 3,500 Simulated Maggots Eating Your Body accessory.

These devices, incidentally, are part of an entire Dave Barry line of Traveling Executive Fitness Products, which also includes the Heavy Briefcase. This appears from the outside to be a normal leather briefcase, but hidden inside is a 350-pound weight!