a rinse-cycle related death

It’s been a week since I got my little odometer for the 10,000 step program that our company’s ‘wellness committee’ has adopted in the hopes of keeping us all well. Though I’ve been told by the office know-it-all, that the device clipped to all of our belts is not an ‘odometer’ as I have been calling it, but a ‘pedometer’ since ‘odometers’ are for cars and ‘ped’ means foot. Personally, I’d quite enjoy sticking both my ‘pedometer’ along with my foot, up this person’s ass…but then I’d would be unable to gauge just how many steps I take during the course of a day, thus I have been refraining myself.

Unfortunately, the only thing that this whole wellness activity has taught me is how very little I move each day. While others around the office constantly check their ped-o-dometers and revel in the number of steps they take each hour, I remain woefully lacking in my own step department.

Even Kristi, the recent college grad and smoker, steps more each day than I do. “Here I always felt guilty about smoking,” she told me one day right after checking her step progress, “but now, I find that I take more smoke breaks throughout the day because it makes me walk more. Who would have thought that smoking was making me more healthy?”

Meanwhile, my underachieving legs atrophy more and more every day, and I have my trusty little ped-o-dometer to thank for bringing this to my attention.

Last Friday after work, I headed out to meet some friends at a nearby bar. And, for fear of looking like an idiot for wearing a little step counting gizmo into a place where all the cool inanimate objects hang out, such as alcohol, I hid the little device in my pants pocket.

And this is where it remained all weekend…from bar to hamper to washer to dryer. And what I found is that, while Timex watches may be able to take a licking and keep on ticking, little gadgets that count your steps do not.

As I pulled out my ped-o-dometer from the bottom of the dryer, having apparently fallen out during one of the drying cycles, I flicked open the cover to see if it had any life left in it…which it did not.

Although, having apparently mistaken all the spinning and tumbling for steps, the number 11,074 was frozen on the little digital face plate of my no longer functioning step counter.

Naturally, I was saddened by this turn of events…because losing a piece of technology, no matter how stupid and worthless it may be, is always a cause for despair. Still, a smile crossed my face.

I had finally reached my 10,000 step goal!