TheBanyanTree: Me and My Trampoline

[Monique Colver]

Yesterday, on our way back from a calorie laden lunch, we went shopping for
a treadmill. If you don't see the irony, I can't help you. But there we
were, and we found it, the treadmill of my dreams, if I were to dream about
treadmills, which I don't, at least not on an ongoing basis. It has all the
most important features, including fetching me a bagel and running by itself
when I'm too tired to bother with it. I have high expectations for my
exercise equipment. It didn't come home with us yet, but it will soon. But
right next to the treadmills was a display of those cute little trampolines,
the little round ones that are touted as exercise trampolines, small enough
to have sitting around the house. And I fell in love. "I must have one of
those!" I exclaimed to my husband. The store guy ran to get his pricing gun
and before I knew it, wham! The price had gone up. My timing is less than
impeccable. My husband, on the other hand, looked at me quizzically (i.e.,
as if I'd lost my mind) and said, "What are you going to do with it?"

"I don't know. But I must have one! Look, the girl on the box is fit and
trim! It must be good for something!" Look, it's not like he's the voice of
rational thought around here. Every time the treadmill subject comes up he
says, "We can teach Ash to run on it!" That's when I look at him quizzically
(i.e., as if he's lost his mind.)

Anyway, it didn't really matter, because I had to have the trampoline. Maybe
I never had a trampoline growing up. Maybe I like the concept of bouncing up
and down with very little effort. Maybe I just like round things. Besides, I
was paying for it, and besides, he's not as if he can say no to me. How can
he? I'm totally charming.

So I bought the trampoline, and we brought it home. I told the treadmill not
to worry, that the trampoline was just going ahead to check out conditions
to make sure it was safe, and that he could join us when the coast was
determined to be clear.

Last night I opened the box. It was obviously a to-be-assembled item, since
the box was rectangular and the trampoline, in real life, would be bigger
than the box. I looked at the instructions, which had one of those diagrams
of exploded pieces, and I shrieked. My husband came running in from the
garage as he usually does when I shriek, and asked if I'd been attacked by a
wild animal or something. "No, but look at these instructions! Now what?"

Did I mention my husband is a guy? This is immensely helpful in these
situations. He looked at it, he looked at the trampoline, and he said, "The
legs just screw right on. Look, like this," and he demonstrated.

"Oh. Okay. Never mind."

Then I took another look at the trampoline that was still folded in half
(since I'd already made the most difficult first step of unfolding it from
fourths), and the instructions, and then I read a portion of the
instructions aloud, the part that said, "Always use two or more strong
people to unfold or fold the trampoline. Failure to use two or more strong
people may allow the rails to spring back into the folded position and
strike someone which can cause serious bodily injury or DEATH."

My husband said, "What? Read that again." So I did. it still mentioned
serious bodily injury or DEATH.

"Where are we going to find two strong people?" I asked.

He was not amused, which was odd, as he usually is.

I mean, this is a tiny little trampoline, and now I find out it can kill me?
This is not what I'd bargained for.

He grabbed one side, I grabbed the other (how do you determine sides of
something round anyway?) and with a simple snap it was unfolded and ready
for the next step. Death and serious bodily injury averted AGAIN! My life is
one miracle after another.

After that Andrew went back to his garage sorting tasks, where he has done
an amazing job of sorting out the "things that have to go" from the "things
that have to go elsewhere" though he still hasn't found my little recipe
book that has secret family recipes, and I completed the trampoline without
further incident.

Then I bounced on it a few times.

I wasn't really sure what to do then and it was almost 10 at night and I'd
had a long day and hadn't had dinner yet, so I dragged Andrew away from his
garage tasks and we went out to eat another calorie laden fattening meal.

There's irony in here somewhere, but I'm darned if I can find it.

Monique