Misheru

Occasionally I run across really funny stories in the personal finance blogosphere, and I have to thank Boston Gal’s Open Wallet for posting this video of Stephen Colbert talking about gas prices. Enjoy!

La Jenny at Three Kid Circus is having a wee bit of a contest for a Wii. She wants embarrassing fitness purchase stories; I have to say that, in the main, I’ve never been one for bad fitness purchases. I bought a Nordic Trak at a yard sale a few years ago, but I actually used it — a lot. I spend a stupid amount of money on light-weight camping gear and I still have my snorkeling gear from 1999 (it’s good stuff, so I hang onto it hoping we’ll move near the ocean again *sigh*). The only thing I’ve ever bought that I never used much was an exercise ball. I finally sneaked it out of the house into the garbage, because the kids loved rolling it everywhere and over everything (cats, toys, papers).

I did start to have a small fitness DVD problem for a while. I tried to do yoga with Rodney Yee. Bad idea. The man’s washboard abs just kept distracting me, and not from the pain. He’s a beast, and there is no way any normal human can keep up.

So, do I have any really bad fitness purchases? Nope. However, I do have a good story…

My college roommate (LeeAnn!) and I were somewhat…incompatible when we first met. I liked tie-dye and folding my socks. She wore matching plaid outfits and joined English horseback riding. I couldn’t believe someone from Seattle - Seattle! - would be such cowboy-obsessed, electric-slide dancing, plaid-outfit-wearing dork (love you Yan!).

Then there was the thigh master.

LeeAnn cleaned really, really well — once a month. We finally drew a line down the room. She kept her crap on her side, and I tried to stop the urge to wash her clothes and put them away in color-coordinated order. I brought movie posters from my job working at the local theater (now, sadly, closed down). She brought weird gadgets and a thigh master.

Here’s the problem with a thigh master and an ocd person: there’s nowhere to put the darn thing. In fact, that’s probably the one reason I don’t buy exercise equipment, because it never folds up the way it says it will. Or it folds up but it takes an hour just to set it back up, which is an hour I could be, say, walking. Or eating chocolate.

I was obsessively neat that first year, and the thigh master was a thorn in my side. Where would it go? It lived in the laundry basket. Then under the bed, where it would get shoved out and I’d trip on it. It didn’t fit in the closet. It didn’t lean into a corner. So, finally, I went and got a hammer and a nail, and I put the nail into the side of the closet at the end of the room by the door, and we hung it up where it wouldn’t bother us (i.e., me).

There it lived, until Gonzaga’s Spring Preview days. Then, one night, LeeAnn and I were in our room, studying. We had the door cracked slightly, and all was quiet in the girls’ hall. So, imagine our surprise when some visiting highschool kid ran up, reached in, grabbed the thigh master, and sped off. LeeAnn and I looked at each other, and then we jumped up and chased the guy through the dorm and out onto the campus grounds. He was fast though. The last I saw of that thigh master, it was speeding into the dusk in the hands of a gangly 18-year-old kid, the teal and pink plastic glinting in the sunset.

I didn’t miss it.

On a BIKE…

Conversation late last night:

“We should go to Costco.”
“Why?”
“They have economy packs of penises.”
“They have economy packs of what?!”
“They have economy packs of…condoms. I meant to say condoms!”
“So now we know why you like Costco…”

And just for fun, here’s Jon Stewart, talking about the recent rice “shortage” in the U.S. (featuring Costco, but without the economy penis packs, unfortunately)

My favorite part of this video, after the clapping? Ben strolling by in his Lightning McQueen undies at the end. He’ll never forgive me for that.