Lippard.Multics 1985-12-03 15:11:21 mst Tue Subject: Dave Barry Fitness Test Date: Wednesday, 27 November 1985 09:29 mst From: Charlie Spitzer Subject: How fit are you? To: {mbx >udd>m>jjl>misc>misc} How Fit Are You? The first step in your new fitness program is to take the three simple tests below so we can find out how fit you are right now. Be sure to write down the results as you go along, so the police will be able to figure out what happened. 1. Body Fat Test You'll need: A swimming pool A dozen concrete blocks Some stout rope A knife A primitive denizen of some remote fungal island in the South Pacific Directions: Fat tends to make you float, so the idea here is to determine how many concrete blocks have to be lashed to your body to make you stay on the bottom of the pool for at least a minute without bobbing to the surface. Have your denizen perch by the side of the pool with the knife clenched in his teeth so he can dive down to cut you loose after the minute elapses. ----------------------------------- (Caution: Some of your more primitive denizens have no understanding whatsoever of time, so their concept of a minute may in fact be closer to what we in Western Civilization think of as a fortnight. Also, whatever you do, don't give your denizen one of those Swiss army knives with all the various confusing attachments. You don't want him swimming down there and sawing at your rope with the spoon.) ----------------------------------- How to score: Count the number of blocks required to keep you submerged. More than eight is very bad. 2. Heart Test You'll need: A friend A job at an office building with elevators A scorpion Directions: Give the scorpion to your friend, and instruct him to wait a couple of weeks, until you've completely forgotten about it, then sneak up behind you at work and hurl it into the elevator with you just as the doors close. What we're looking to determine here is whether your heart is strong enough to handle the rigors of an exercise program. How to score: Give yourself a 5 if your heart continues to beat unassisted. If you score an lower than that, you probably shouldn't do this particular test. 3. Aerobics Test You'll need: A stopwatch Gerald Ford Directions: The word "aerobics" comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous boredom." This is the difference between a world-class marathon runner and a normal person: a world-class marathon runner has undergone sufficient aerobic conditioning that he can run for nearly three hours without falling asleep, whereas a normal person will quit after a few minutes and look for something interesting to do. What you want to do in this test is start your stopwatch, then see how long you can listen to Gerald Ford discuss the federal deficit before you doze off. If Gerald Ford is unavailable, you can use televised golf. How to score: 15 seconds is excellent. More than 30 seconds indicates some kind of brain damage. Calculating Your Final "Fitness Quotient" Divide your age by the number of blocks it took to hold you on the bottom of the pool, then add the number of seconds it took for Gerald Ford to sedate you multiplied by your scorpion score, unless you are claiming two or more exemptions. This will give you your "fitness quotient"; store it wherever you keep the instructions for operating your various digital watches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Important Medical Note | | | | Before you begin any fitness program, you should, of course, have | |your doctor give you a thorough physical examination in which he | |shoves cold steel implements into your various bodily orifices and | |stick needles directly into your skin and makes you put on a flimsy | |garment apparently made from a cocktail napkin and parade through the| |waiting room carrying a transparent container filled with your own | |urine past several people you hope to someday ask for jobs. Or if | |you'd prefer not to undergo this procedure, you may simply send your | |doctor some money. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from Dave Barry's "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead" without permission from the publisher, or author, or nothing. Nyah!