The good the bad the ugly

My pool has 3 instructors for the water aerobics class.

First, there is Patty, the instructor every instructor wants to be. She is a grandma who is so cute and in such good shape that the pool cleaning guy makes a special stop to hang out and watch her in action (she teaches from outside the pool). All of the guys in the jacuzzi just sit there, mouths literally agape.

Patty rocks because she has good routines, she is funny as hell, and she isn't hung up on you following her every move. She just demonstrates and keeps things moving. I always get a great workout.

Then there is the Dumb Instructor. I don't know what her name is, but she makes every move so needlessly complicated that I never get a good workout because I am trying to figure out what she means by "Charlie Chaplin feet" or "eggbeater legs." The other day she had us hopping on one foot while swinging the other leg like a pendulum with "cross country arms" while we were traveling the length of the pool. Huh?

But the one who takes the cake is the Bitchy Cheerleader from Hell. With serious control issues. She is annoyingly perky and commanding. She not only has a routine, she wants you to be as committed to her routine as she is.

She can't STAND it if you deviate from her Grand Water Aerobics plan, and if you fail to follow her moves, she will point it out to the rest of the class in her loud, screechy Cheerleader from Hell voice.

The other day my friend Jules got busted for failing to hop when Bitchy Cheerleader was hopping. Jules said "But I have a knee injury." "Just don't hop as high," said BC. Jules just gave her the "You nuts, lady" look and went off to a corner of the pool.

She came down on me like a ton of bricks during her routine where we do four jumping jacks in one direction, then for some unknown reason, have to spin in the direction she tells us to, before we do 2 more jumping jacks, then spin some other direction. And on and on and on.

I can't tell left from right, so I quickly lost track of which direction I was supposed to be facing. No problem, right? It's all a big pool of water.

Wrong.

BC was incensed. "Your OTHER right!" she screamed. I looked blankly at her and kept facing the same direction. "Your OTHER right! Your OTHER right!" I said 'I'm really fine right here." She wildly gestured for me to spin. "I'm WATCHING you," she yelled.

"Cool," I said, with a steely reserve honed in the bowels of the newsroom by facing down mean old copy editors (Hi, Doug!).

From then on it was war. I was the teenager with an attitude and she was the Mom set on pointing out my every flaw. I channeled my best Bershon face and stuck it out, making rude gestures across the pool to Jules behind BC's back.

BC wasn't done, though.

There is a woman, Cora, who comes to class but doesn't participate. I think she has post-polio syndrome because she has one leg that is significantly weaker than the other. She uses the class time, because there are no lap swimmers, to do her own workout in a corner of the pool. She works like hell, too.

Of course this pisses BC off. Because everyone should want to do her workout, even though there is plenty of room in the pool.

At the end of class, she shouted at Cora to help with the lane lines. The first couple times Cora didn't hear her - she wears earplugs - and that only made BC madder.

When she finally got Cora's attention and Cora started pulling down the big, heavy lines, BC remarked to the people around her, "Good. Now maybe she will get some exercise."

Tell me, is it proper to punch your aerobics instructor? Because if BC is there next week, I might just consider it.

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Today's photo: What your view of an Angels game will be like if Angel Apologist sits in front of you:


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And in other news, give Des some linky love because she needs to bust her way into Google's top "Super Des" spot. Des is so cool that she deserves to be #1.

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Have you seen Linkateria lately? That video that is up is just so wrong that it is right.