Saturday, August 02, 2008

No-Sweat Nirvana

Shut down the labs, stop all research, drink a toast from the test tubes and beakers--we're there. With the couch potato pill, the Dream has peaked. The free-lunch fantasies of the something-for-nothing society have all come true, and from now on everyone tones up without moving a muscle.

From this new height of American know-how, we look back with pity at the sad efforts of the Olympic athletes who were stripped of medals yesterday for using primitive performance-enhancing drugs. From now on, why bother? When everybody is in great condition effortlessly, all that competitive running and jumping, huffing and puffing will soon be passé.

To stay in shape as a young man, I walked around the world, getting to and from work. Trust me on the math: Forty brisk blocks twice a day came to almost a thousand miles a year for 30 years. What a waste!

Now we can board up the gyms, toss out the treadmills, junk the Stairmasters and settle back in our recliners. To get where we want to go, we can stop running and biking and drive there in style. Unless, of course, we run out of gas.

No comments: