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There are these ab things that you can buy from TV, and you strap them to your stomach so that they can send electrical
impulses to your abdominal muscles and kind of give you an instant workout. It's like, all you have to do is sit there and
your muscles contract over and over and your abs develop. It looks totally great, and so incredibly simple that you have to
wonder why someone didn't think of it a hundred years ago. I kind of imagine Benjamin Franklin pulling his kite in from the
thunderstorm and saying to himself "Awesome! Pretty soon I'll be able to read at night, and won't have to bust my ass to work
out my abs!"
If people had been doing it for 100 years, I might believe it worked. I mean, if the army issued ab crunchers to soldiers
in boot camp, and if you could rent these huge industrial models at gyms, and if hospitals used them on comatose patients
so that their muscles didn't atrophy, then I might be willing to try it. As it is, it just looks like something that someone
thought up, slapped together, and figured there were enough gullible people out there to buy it and make them rich.
But I don't think it's about being gullible so much as it is about being lazy. And I can say with certainty that if people
are one thing, it's lazy. I mean, they are totally impatient and don't want to have to wait one second for anything, but more
than that they are completely lazy and never want to lift a finger. I believe that if people had a choice between 1) getting
something right away but having to work their ass off for it, or 2) having to wait a while for something but not having to
put an ounce of effort into it, they would choose 2 every time. In other words, I believe that people are much more lazy than
they are impatient.
That's why there's Cheese Whiz. Cheese-like, foodish product you spray out of an aerosol can. Why? So you can save the
30 seconds that it takes to slice real cheese. Or Jimmy Dean pre-cooked sausage. You can serve your family delicious sausage
in less than a minute! How long does it take to cook regular sausage? Two miutes?
Some folks might think that I'm being unfair, and that what I'm talking about is not laziness, but convenience. It is
a fine line between convenience and laziness, after all. But neither Cheese Whiz not Jimmy Dean Pre-Cooked Sausage is convenience.
Pull tabs on beer and soda cans are convenience. Microwave ovens are convenience. If it saves you less that twenty-five cents
or thirty seconds, then you're just being lazy, ok?
Most of the time, lazy people are losing money. Other folks are getting rich off their laziness. Folks like the guy on
the ab-crunch commercials, and Jimmy Dean. Because you can be as lazy as you want to, but it's going to cost you fifty cents
more per pound of sausage. And maybe you don't have to unwrap or slice Cheese Whiz, but the Cheese Whiz people are living
it up.
Just look at The Jetsons. This is America's vision of the future. The Jetsons never had to cook, they just took
pills or pushed buttons. They have robot hands that come out of their walls, and big electronic things to put their clothes
on them, walk their dogs, even brush their teeth for them. And they probably have little ab machine belts strapped on under
their clothes. And in their future world, Jimmy Dean is President.
When people interview for jobs, the first things they always want to talk about are sick time and vacation pay and benefits
and "I can't work this-day or that-day": It's never I can do a good job for you, it's more like what are
you going to do for me if you're lucky enough to have me work for you? It's all welfare and disability and
unemployment. No one wants to work. Everyone thinks the government owes them a living.
I don't mean this to be a rant, really. I'm as lazy as anyone. I mean, if I thought those ab machines worked, I'd get
one. I wouldn't mind having robots to brush my teeth or put my clothes on for me, either.
The Bible calls it "sloth". It's sitting on the couch feeling hungry because you don't feel like getting up to fix a
sandwich...which, ironically, can save you from another sin that the Bible calls "gluttony". I don't think it's an even trade,
though. And yes, I speak from experience.
From The Mailbag (March 19)
just so you know. theyve done studies on the electronic
muscle stimulation, and it does work.
however it doesnt burn fat, it just flexes the muscle. regular sit-up and crunches are better because they can increase your
heart-rate which is what causes you to burn fat. basically, if you wanted to use the belts, youd have to be skinny with like
2%fat. all it does is increase muscle definition. if you have 10 layers of fat on top of it, its not gonna do a thing.
well... youll probably get some really nice muscles under those 10 layers of fat, but thats about it.
How do you know I have 10 layers of fat?
Now this is the kind of email I like. It's concise and informative. Not based on opinion
and supposition and ignorance like....well, like the stuff that I write.
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