Remember how I spent the last post talking about spinning? (If you don’t, you should read it or you will not understand the sheer lunacy of what I’m about to say.) I went on and on about my first spinning class and how it BURNS and how I was wheezing like an asthmatic, etc. etc. I told EVERYONE I knew that spinning was harder than running, harder than Bikram yoga or Mr. Tom’s advanced jazz class, harder than LIFE ITSELF.

Um.

So.

Apparently? There is this knob on the spinning bike which moves the resistance up and down? And on Tuesday morning, the instructor would scream out periodically to turn the knob to the right and therefore up the resistance until I wanted to DIE. I wondered to myself, between anticipating an oncoming heart attack, how everyone could pedal so much faster than me when it was JUST SO HARD.

Um. I took spinning class again yesterday and realized something.

I realized that on Tuesday morning, I did not turn the knob all the way to the left at the beginning of class. (NORMAL, SMART PEOPLE WOULD KNOW TO DO THIS.) I simply started class with the resistance knob already halfway turned up, where the person before me had left it. And so as the instructor screamed for us to TURN THE KNOB TO THE RIGHT and everyone was pedaling furiously, my muscles were screaming in agony as I huffed and puffed and strained to make the rotations.

Apparently, when you start class with the knob all the way to the left, at zero, the class is a lot easier.

You’d think someone who graduated college with a 3.899 would’ve noticed this. Nope. I took note of this WAY too late. In fact, I took note of this YESTERDAY, when I walked out of class and could still feel all the muscles in my body and was no longer in fear of having a stroke. Spinning is hard but it’s not THAT HARD.

I blame my mother for this; I have no choice. I’m going to add “Knowledge About The Spinning Bike Resistance Knob” to my list of “Things My Mother Should’ve Taught Me But Didn’t”. Other items on this list include:

–How To Not Dress Like A 40 Year Old Woman
–How To Ski
–How To Learn When To Shut The Hell Up Before You Get In Trouble
–How To Avoid Speeding Tickets At All Costs
–How To Find An Older Man To Marry

These are all things that I’ve had to learn MYSELF. (In fact, I haven’t even learned them all yet. Like, skiing!? HOW DO YOU DO THAT?!) You can certainly understand my bitterness, can’t you? I shouldn’t have to do things by myself, EVER. Independency and free-thinking and “forming your own opinions” are all highly overrated. Doing things by MYSELF means I have to learn life lessons and grow as a person and frankly I don’t have the time.

Point of story: When you have kids, teach them about the Spinning Bike Resistance Knob so that they are not in danger of dying of stupidity-induced asthma at the age of 23.

On the flip side, if you want to burn about 12,000 calories in 45 minutes, follow my lead.

Peace.