One small step for my kind…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2011 (5402 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I know the public wants us media persons to tone down our aggressive rhetoric, but I can’t do that today.

I can’t do that because I’m involved in a war.

Again, I know we’re not supposed to point fingers, but this isn’t my fault.

I didn’t start this war. My friend Debbie started it. It began recently when Debbie and her husband, my buddy Nick, went to a movie with me and my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named. It’s not entirely relevant, but we were probably the last people in the city to see the blockbuster film The Social Network, which is about how a guy named Mark Zuckerberg creates the social-networking site Facebook and becomes an Internet zillionaire despite the fact he has the social skills of a shrub and looks like that geeky neighbourhood kid you hire to shovel your driveway every winter.

After the movie, we went out to eat and that’s when my friend Debbie gave me a belated Christmas present.

“Wow! What a cool-looking watch!” I gasped as I tore off the gift wrap.

“It’s not a watch,” Debbie replied, calmly. “It’s a pedometer.”

“Awesome! What’s a pedometer?”

Debbie made a frowny face. “You wear it on your belt and it counts every step you take during the day.”

“Awesome! Why would I want to do that?”

More frowning. “Because it will make you healthier AND happier.”

I tried frowning. “You know what would make me happier?” I demanded.

“No,” Debbie replied.

“A cool-looking watch,” I sniffed.

You’d think Debbie would be able to figure this stuff out on her own, but she is just a medical doctor, whereas I am a highly trained humour columnist.

“I got a pedometer, too,” she explained. “We can have a Step War. We’ll see who walks more each day.”

I was shocked. “People get hurt in wars,” I pointed out. “Being a doctor, you should know important medical facts like that.”

Dr. Debbie shrugged off my logic. “To get the full health benefit, you should aim for 10,000 steps every day.”

I did some mental calculations. “That would mean I’d have to go outside at some point,” I warned her.

“That’s entirely possible,” she conceded. “There’s a lot of dangerous stuff outside — buses, icy sidewalks. And what if every time I go for a walk I end up in front of my fridge? I don’t think you’ve really thought this through, Debbie.”

She gave me the sort of look I imagine she gives to her worst patients. “I think you can handle it,” she snorted. “Walking can really help you lose weight.”

I pondered this. “If you really wanted to help me lose weight, you could have given me a brick.”

“A brick?”

“Yes,” I said, taking a bite of my cheeseburger while Debbie picked at her salad. “If you walk around with a brick in your pocket, you’ll get a better workout than just carrying a wimpy pedometer.”

I think she realized this made a lot of medical sense, but I didn’t want to hurt Debbie’s feelings so I took the pedometer home. Initially, it had zero effect on my health, possibly because I left it sitting on the dining room table for several days.

But, eventually, I put it on and I have to confess there’s nothing like clipping a pedometer to your belt to transform a dorky-looking overweight newspaper columnist into a dorky-looking overweight newspaper columnist with a pedometer clipped to his belt.

I wore it for an entire day and was pretty excited when I took it off and discovered a fascinating fact — it works better if you turn it on first. After turning it on, you still have to calibrate it for your stride length, a complicated procedure best left to your spouse. If you do not have a spouse, you probably don’t need a pedometer because you won’t have anyone giving you a hard time about not getting enough exercise.

The point is, I have worn my pedometer for several days now and here is what I have learned:

1) It is precisely 22 steps from the couch in my den to the refrigerator in the kitchen;

2) It takes nine steps to get from the fridge to the computer where I write these columns;

3) It’s 48 steps to the bar fridge in the basement, so I should probably keep my beer upstairs.

Anyway, my dear friend Debbie has put her foot down and the two of us are going to war. I abhor violence, so I initially considered just walking away.

But then it hit me: That was her plan in the first place!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca