Panic Sisters

Sis called me in a panic. It was midnight, her time, and she wanted
to make sure that I was not dead. More specifically, my mom wanted to
make sure that I was not dead, so she enlisted my sister as a sentry.

"Mom wants to know if you're still alive," Sis said.

"Yep.
Still here," I told her, as I brought my swimsuit in from the balcony
where it had been drying. "Still enjoying our vacation."

"OK.
Well, why don't you tell Mom? She's worried," Sis implored. "She's
calling me every two seconds, freaking me out, right as I'm falling
asleep from Tylenol PM. Please talk to her."

My mother is in
Israel for two months. She left without leaving me her phone number,
address or any contact information. But she still managed to be mad at
me for not keeping in touch while I was in Oahu and Hurricane Flossie
threatened the Big Island.

This is what Mom does: panic. As Sis
points out, "When she's home all she does is watch Fox News and listen
to bad stories about Israel, and when she's in Israel she just sits
there and hears bad things about here."

It's a charming habit, one that has imbued the Saar Sisters with profound neuroses.

My
sister is terrified of burglaries – not that she owns anything she'd
actually miss. She won't share food. And she used to worry that if we
walked our dog, he'd get attacked by cats.

I won't drive with
my doors unlocked, and I'll only crack the window open a bit – not
enough to allow, say, a carjacker any access. I stash cash in odd
places around the house, lest the Cossacks suddenly appear on the I-405
and I have to flee.

It doesn't matter how ridiculous we know our
actions to be, Sis and I can't help it: If Mom told us there's a risk,
then there's a risk.

This is especially true when a phone goes
unanswered. Colleagues used to look at me aghast when, in the middle of
an important meeting, I'd answer my cell.

"Sorry," I would explain. "I always pick up if my mom or sister call."

What I never told them is why I
always pick up. In other people's families, an unanswered call usually
elicits a voicemail message. Not so in Casa de Crazy Chicks.

In
our household, an unanswered phone is an invitation to dial up another
phone. Let that backup phone go to voicemail, and the panic sets in.

"Have
you heard from your sister today?" is one of the most common greetings
I get from Mom (It ranks right behind "How is Zev?" and just above
"Hello"). She usually follows that up with, "She's not picking up any
of her phones."

So when I failed to tote my Treo to the beach, my
Flossie-watching mom was beside herself. Never mind that the gusts were
poised to hit an island I wasn't on – Mom had heard disaster was on its
way, and her hurricane of anxiety would not be downgraded to a tropical
storm.

News of the hurricane didn't even register as a blip on Sis' radar until Mom called and recruited her into the family panic.

"Mom's
telling me there are 150 mph winds and that it's pouring rain," Sis
told me, when she reached me in my hotel room. She then warned me that
Mom was going to call again, so "please pick up."

When I did, my
mom was relieved, thanking the (still clear) heavens and scolding me
for not immediately answering my phone. She then grilled me about the
discrepancies between what she saw on Israeli TV and what I saw out my
hotel window. Still suspicious of my assurances that, really,
everything was fine, she asked if I'd still be able to fly home, as
scheduled, the next day.

Yes, I told her. Everything we had heard indicated that we'd be fine.

And
we were. I boarded the plane with a sleepy, lei-wearing toddler and tan
husband in tow, settled Zev into his seat and then got into my own. But
before the plane left the gate, I remembered something and stood up. I
opened the overhead bin, reached into my bag and rooted around for my
cell phone.

Happily, I turned it off.

Twitter-pated?

I don't get it.

Usually I "get it." I instantly took to instant messaging. I blog. I can type texts on my Treo faster than a 12-year-old girl.

But Twitter makes no sense.

I'm
one week deep into a Twitter experiment, a trial to see what my friends
and I can learn about the latest networking craze, and so far the only
thing I've learned is that I don't get Twitter.

To those of you
born before "Tron," Twitter is a social network that functions as a
kind of micro-blog centered around the question, "What are you doing?"
Anyone who "follows you" can see your answers, which you post at
irregular intervals at all hours and for no particular reason.

"Writing an e-mail to Aunt Katie," Leslie writes.

"Thinking about too many things at once. What can I delete from my brain? Nothing," Eric muses.

"Waiting for a burger at Whole Foods. Excited to learn they grill burgers here," Hubby posts.

Through
Twitter I can learn about my friends' most banal thoughts and actions
in real time, as if I were there with them in line at the bank. But
without actually having to schlep with them to the bank.

That's
part of the appeal, I think. Since we can't all be together all the
time, isn't it nice to have technology fool us into thinking that we're
closer?

Maybe. I'm all for a false sense of community
germinated in the ever-isolating confines of my lonely home office.
It's why I read blogs. But one of my problems with Twitter is that
people only post their thoughts when nothing is going on.

True,
by following Leslie's Twitters as she looks around her kitchen, I can
get a pretty good snapshot of how her day is going. I might even sense
that she seems indecisive about food and that now might be a good time
to try to grab lunch with her.

Still, she didn't tell me that she is bored and slightly hungry. Instead, she noted, to no one in particular, that she was "mulling homemade falafel."

Reading
that doesn't make me closer to her. It doesn't connect us. Instead, it
makes me feel as though I'm spying on her. It's sanctioned spying,
sure, but it's spying nonetheless.

Still, I find myself drawn to
Twitter, checking it every few hours to learn that Chris is
contemplating a car wash and that Eric is having e-mail problems. Is it
just the mental voyeurism? Is it just boredom?

What gives?

I
contemplate Twittering the question, but opt instead to IM Kevin, one
of the few members of the crew who decided not to join the experiment.
Kevin is no fan of social networking – or of being social, for that
matter. He has nine friends on MySpace, and two of them, he notes, are
inanimate objects.

"Moth/flame," Kevin responds about my vague
fascination. "Next month something else will burn bright, and you'll
head over there to check it out."

He's probably right. I'm just
slack-jawed Drooler Monkey. Still, I don't play "World of Warcraft" and
I've never stepped foot in Second Life. So there has to be something
else at work here.

As I try to figure out what it is, my computer
screen beeps at me. Maayan sends me an IM to tell me about her day.
Then Yvette pops up on my screen to say she's excited to visit her
brother next month. Heather IMs me – I haven't spoken to her in ages –
and we do a quick catching-up before she heads off for bed.

That's
when I realize why I love/hate Twitter: Twitter is wonderful because my
friends are wonderful – I love them, so I love keeping up with them.
But it's awful because I'd much rather exchange mundane nothings with
them directly.

Better yet, I'd like to see them. Last week, Steve
flew in from New York to surprise me for my birthday. We hung out for
most of the weekend, laughing and talking about nothing.

Seriously,
nothing. No Earth-shattering exchanges. No bombs dropped. Just our own
live versions of "mulling homemade falafel," in between sips of coffee
and too much food.

I realize that much of what I say with my
friends can be distilled into Twitters; we're not the deepest bunch.
But it's so much nicer just to be in their company, often not saying
anything at all.

So I post another Twitter to the group: "Get offline and come over."

Twitter as a way of inviting people to hang out in person?

This I get.

I, Robot

I'd make a terrible robot.

I can't multiply or divide. I talk
too much. And I waste a tremendous amount of time. I don't just waste
time; I thrive on wasting time.

If I were a robot, I'd run on procrastination and futzing.

When
I tell Hubby, at 10 p.m., that I'm exhausted and need to get to bed
early, he can be sure that I'll be starting a load of laundry at
midnight. My weekly column deadline is usually heralded by the
organizing of my closet. I pay all my bills on time – but only because
writing checks is something I can do instead of prepping dinner.

But
I recently discovered that, were I ever forced to be someone's robot
(I'm looking at you, China), my overlord could easily squeeze me for
every second – simply by reducing the seconds I have to myself.

My
day care provider surprised parents at the last minute by announcing
she'd be closed an extra week at the end of August. Her three-week
summer vacation was hard, but this fourth week was a killer. I had
already planned my work schedule around her being open, so I had to
plow ahead, writing every minute that Zev slept.

I worked for two
hours during the day, when he napped. And then I started up again at 9
p.m., working until about 2 a.m., when I'd wander to bed in a
bleary-eyed daze.

True, the house was dirtier than normal. And
laundry piled up a little high. And, yes, I didn't return anyone's
calls or e-mails. And my skin turned sallow and my throat hurt all the
time; but other than that, I was amazed at what I was able to
accomplish, simply by cutting sleep and social interaction from my life.

I
finished some magazine pieces and expanded my client base, all on
virtually no sleep. Plus, I got to spend lots of time with Zev. At one
point, Zev had to pry my eyelids open with his tiny fingers, but at
least we were together.

On the last day of my intense work/Zev
schedule, I found I had become so robotlike in my efficiency, that I
was even able to cook a fairly involved Shabbat dinner. It was my
version of a victory dance – celebrating my ability to essentially work
two full-time jobs at once. Without collapsing.

I could afford to
be gleeful – day care would be opening up again (finally) the following
week, and I would be able to get work done during "normal" business
hours.

Then, on Saturday, we got the news: The school was having some staffing issues and would not open until the following week.

Moms
called each other in a panic. Some were indignant, some were in tears.
I was just tired. How could I maintain this for another week? On
Sunday, one of the work-at-home dads and I came up with a plan: We'd
both work at my house, taking turn watching the kids, fielding calls
and writing. It wasn't ideal, but at least our children would get some
time with their friends, and we'd get to spend some time on our jobs.

After
Zev went to bed, I went to work, cleaning the house and planning snacks
for the kids. Then I went to "work," researching and writing until I
couldn't see straight.

The next morning, I got a call from my
would-be co-worker's wife. She had found a day care that was accepting
refugees for the week. I had already heard gushing reviews of this day
care from friends, and so I rushed Zev over, settled him in and left.
Though a voice in my head said, "What am I doing?" Zev knew a lot of
the kids there, and seemed happy to be able to play with his friends.

I
got home to an eerie silence and my computer waiting for me. How odd to
see the glare of the morning sunlight bounce off my monitor. I finished
off a few small assignments, caught up on some e-mail and was about to
start up on a larger project, when the phone rang.

It was Maayan.
She sounded overheated and overworked. The heat wave hadn't yet broken,
and her kids had been stuck in their air-conditioned house for too many
days in a row. They were all driving each other crazy. Her older
daughter's preschool wouldn't start for a few days, and she still
hadn't found a place for the youngest.

She was sweaty. She was frustrated. She was headed to the mall. Did I want to meet them there?

I
stared at the blank screen on my computer monitor. Finish my work, or
go to the mall? I could almost hear the little robot in me sputtering
and melting into a pile of broken parts.

"Sure," I said, grabbing my keys. I had all the time in the world.

The Road Not Taken -- Maybe For A Reason

I've been thinking about that Robert Frost poem recently, the one
titled "The Road Not Taken," but usually mistakenly referred to on
countless truck-stop keepsakes as "The Road Less Traveled."

The
end of the poem goes: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the
one less traveled by/ And that has made all the difference."

People
who need to feel better about their poor choices read those words,
probably painted on porcelain plates in their bathrooms, and take
comfort in the illusion that they're living unconventional lives. But
the catch is, Frost doesn't say the outcome of his trip was good. Just
that his decision made all the difference. And that he can't go back
and change it.

That poem sprang to mind when a woman cornered me
at an indoor play area last week. She was my mom's age, and I
mistakenly thought the twin 22-month-olds she toted around were her
grandkids. They were not.

"My husband needed children, so I had
them," she explained, as though she were talking about knitting socks.
Her youngest grandchild is 6. Her oldest son is older than her husband.
Her third husband.

She started in on the Kabalah and how if I
don't send Zev to a religious school he has a "70 percent chance" of
becoming a drug addict. She said I should have many children. She said
I should hire a nanny. She said I should eat less meat (not for health
reasons, but as a budget cut to help pay for the nanny).

"You have a lot of opinions," I said, trying to ease away from her.

"Not opinions," she said, raising her finger in the air. "Experience."

Ah, experience.

Clearly,
Grandmom has taken the road less traveled by. And clearly it has made
all the difference – but why is it that lonely road travelers like her
think I want to retrace their brambly paths and rush toward their
experiences?

I like the beaten path. It's got fantastic
amenities, good lighting, lots of company. Just think about what the
road less traveled has to offer: nothing. No bathrooms, no Starbucks,
no truck stops from which to buy Frost-inscribed knickknacks. Nothing.

My
mom is about to discover this. This week she is leaving Israel to
embark on a journey to – I think – Slovenia. The reason I'm not sure is
because she was not entirely sure where she was headed. She just hooked
up with a tour group and "where they are going, that's where we're
going," she said. It's a very romantic way to choose to travel – but so
is hitchhiking on dark, desolate highways, and I wouldn't recommend
that, either.

I know the Frost poem is a metaphor, but it's
kinda a lousy one because if you were ever truly faced with a forked
road, it'd be lunacy to choose the one that veers away from everyone
else. When I was a news reporter, I covered the funeral of a
39-year-old woman who died from exposure. She had gotten lost while
driving in the desert, and decided – so it seemed, anyway – to get out
of her car and die.

Her friends were touchy-feely new age types
who opted to "celebrate," rather than question, the woman's choices,
but I had to wonder how far off the beaten path she must have wandered
that she couldn't find her way back to a main road. Her friends swore
she didn't commit suicide, that she didn't have a reason to, but who
chooses the road that leads to sure death? Or, for that matter,
newborns younger than your grandkids?

Zev wasn't done playing, but Grandmom wasn't done talking – so I packed up our stuff and said goodbye.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

It
was such an abrupt and impudent question. We hadn't arrived together.
We didn't even exchange names; what business was it of hers where I was
going?

"Not down the path you've taken, I hope,"I said in my head. "I have to go," I said out loud, adding under my breath, "back to planet Earth.''

Maybe
I'm just doing the same thing everyone else does – using
poetry-turned-pabulum to convince myself that my choices are the right
ones. But I doubt it. If Grandmom's trail is the road less traveled,
she can weather it alone.

I got in my car, and got on the freeway.

More Belly Achin'

People don't know this, but pregnant women eventually have children.

People
think they know this. They see a pregnant woman, and they understand,
on some level, that the lumpy protrusion she's carrying around contains
a small human life form. But they don't truly grasp it.

How else
to explain the wild disparity between the way a woman is treated when
she is with child versus the way she's treated when she is with
children?

Oh, I remember the days when my enormous form would
elicit smiles and loving words from total strangers. Women I didn't
know told me I was beautiful. Men stopped me to reminisce about their
wives' or girlfriends' pregnancies.

Now I'm just the motor
behind an unwieldy stroller that bruises people's ankles and terrifies
small dogs. I'm the woman getting looks because I should have known
better than to bring my toddler on an airplane – he's small; couldn't I
have just mailed him to our destination?

I was once a glorious
symbol of human fecundity. Now I'm just some kid's mom, and I'm taking
an awful long time with that squirmy potty-trainer in the bathroom
stall.

“I bet I could burst out in a fit of tears right here,
and a crowd of people would surround me, saying, ‘Oh, what's wrong?
What can we do for you? Comped meal?' ” a very pregnant Maura noted
over dinner at a restaurant the other night. “But if he cried,” she
motioned to Zev, “it would be, ‘Shut that damn kid up.' ”

She's right – but why?

True,
kids move erratically and have the ability to leak fluid from every
orifice. They make a lot of noise for no apparent reason, and they
require bizarre and space-consuming gear. They're messy, fussy and not
a little bit gassy.

But so are pregnant women.

Maura and
I were working on a theory as to why this phenomenon occurs, why
society loathes moms but loves mothers-to-be. But when the food
arrived, Maura dove into her plate, Zev demanded to be taken to the
potty and we both lost our train of thought.

Forced to figure
this out on my own, I can only guess that it has something to do with
our national fascination with the Next Big Thing.

We love
expectation – anticipating something that is just outside our grasp.
Camping out in line for the first “Star Wars” film must have exceeded
the joy of actually seeing the film. Would anybody watch “American
Idol” if the buildup to the finale weren't so deliciously orchestrated?

A pregnant woman is like a wrapped present or a furniture
catalog; when we look at her, we can enjoy the idea of something –
which is often more gratifying than the thing itself.

Of course,
the “thing” in this case is a baby. A noisy, inconvenient baby. And
what baffles me is that a pregnant woman is always pregnant with a
baby. What else could be expected of someone who's expecting? Nobody
goes into labor and delivers a unicorn or a rainbow. There's no
mystery. The only mystery, to me, is why baby-haters love gestaters so
much.

People have to know that eventually that pretty pregnant
lady will be flabby and overworked and tired of being judged for her
child-rearing decisions. Now, I'm not suggesting that society stop
bending over backwards for pregnant women. These poor souls have had
their bodies hijacked and have no idea what they're in for – give them
all the adoration you can.

What I'm saying is that there is no
reason the party has to end when the cord is cut. Instead, people
should view pregnancy for what it really is: the first step to a long,
long commitment.

Here's what I propose: Everyone reading this
should adopt one pregnant woman. Pick just one that you know, love her
up the way you already do – get her a mid-afternoon snack, rub her
shoulders, forgive her bizarre emotional outbursts. And then continue
to do this for the next 18 years.

Maybe you'll have to throw in
a few extra snacks for the moppets, and you'll definitely have to hold
off on scolding the woman when her little ones scream on the plane. But
otherwise, it won't be all that different than the way you treated her
before she popped.

If you need me, I'll be at the table with Maura, awaiting my random acts of kindness

Born At The Right Time

A recent study found that the eldest children in families develop a
higher IQ than their siblings. Since I'm 10 years older than my only
sibling, I gobbled up the research with crow-footed glee. But one thing bugged me:
The study also said younger sibs tended to be more “groundbreaking” and
creative than their older counterparts.

“That hardly seems fair,” I thought to myself. “Why can't I be smarter and more innovative?”

I IM'd Sis for some answers.

Me: So there have been a number of stories in the papers lately about studies linking birth order to IQ and success in life.

Sis: Yes. I heard about it on “The View.”

Me:
OK. So you know that they say that firstborns have a better chance at
having a higher IQ, but that younger children are more likely to be
revolutionaries, right?

Sis:
Yeah, yeah. I think probably in most families that is very true, but
sometimes when the older sibling is really smart and excels at
everything the younger sibling tries to immulate that.

Me: Emulate.

Sis: Hahahaha.

Me: Or, in our case, maybe immolate.

Sis: See! Why is it that you know such good English and you had the same parents as I did?

Me: I read books. What did you think about this whole aspect of the study showing that younger siblings are revolutionaries?

Sis: Well, I think you had more of a bond with our parents than I did so you were perfect and did what they wanted.

Me: Uh-huh. I'm not sensing any resentment or anything.

Sis: I think that's true.

Me: What's true?

Sis:
That I changed the way things were in the house. Just because you were
first, and had things a certain way didn't mean I was gonna do that
too. And I didn't.

Me: OK,
I guess that's a form of revolution. What about in terms of your
approach to life? You did go into journalism after all – apparently to
immolate me.

Sis:
Hahahaha. Well I'm both! I tried as hard as I could to be like you the
best I could, but no more than that. No overachieving. Just achieving.
I agreed with the study, but I'm saying that the opposite is true also.

Me: What about the study did you agree with?

Sis: Hold on let me find it somewhere. Send me a link to the study.

Me: [I send a link.] I'd like to point out that you said you were going to find the study and then asked me to send you a link.

Sis: LOL. See!

Me: More telling is that I did it.

Sis: [After
reading it.] OK. So … I would say that the study shows older siblings
have a higher IQ than their younger siblings because of the family
dynamics. And in our case that was definitely true. You were quiet and
dutiful because it was easier for you to be. Being a little kid with a
bunch of older people was harder, and I tried to get attention by doing
not so smart things while you got attention for doing great things and
just being yourself.

Me: Well that's a giant oversimplification of my childhood, but OK. Also "not so smart things" isn't what you did to get attention.

Sis:
Yes it is. Screaming and acting up, and running around, while you were
quiet and studied. If I had your life, I would be different.

Me: You'd be you, but with a younger sister. We were both essentially only children.

You
had a much tougher family dynamic than I did. [Our father died when Sis
was 12, after a long battle with cancer.] But that had more to do with
Dad's illness, in my opinion, than birth order.

Sis: No.
I think it's birth order. Birth order determined how we got to live. If
I came first I would have had your life. You would have had to have
mine.

Me: Wow. Look at the wording of that ... do we need family counseling?

Sis: Well, it's true. You had delicious hot meals every night [Dad cooked], while I ate Hot Pockets [Mom did not].

Me: Wow.

Sis: What? It's so true.

Me: I know ... it's just ... wow.

Sis:
It would have been a calmer environment. When I went off to college, I
got straight A's because I could study and do what I want.

Me: You got what?

Sis: I did too. Wanna see my first year report card? All A's.

Me: Are you sure you want to go on record saying you got straight A's through college?

Sis: I got straight A's my first year because …

Me: Because you took that high school-level math class that you'd already taken four times before?

Sis: LOL. Noooo!

Me: Three?

Sis:
Four. But that's beside the point. Mom's kookiness and everyone else
wasn't there to make me crazy. There was already a method to how the
family was running that YOU helped create ... not me. And it didn't go
well with my personality so I spent more time arguing than studying.

Me: OK. So since leaving the house, do you find yourself more motivated and intellectually curious?

Sis: Yes.

Me: So I can expect great revolutionary things from you?

Sis: Duh.
       
       
       

Earning the Right To Bare Arms

Long before I had a kid, when I still had a waistline, I visited a
private trainer who fancied himself a health guy. He told me he hated,
hated, hated working with clients who said they just wanted to "look
good in a bathing suit." He was interested in helping people improve
their health. So what, he asked me, would I like to work on?

I
blinked a few times. I was 22 and healthy. I couldn't think of a
reasonable lie, so I told him the truth: "I want arms like TLC."

My
body was fine – sure, I would have liked bigger boobs, but whatever. My
only aspiration was to have appendages as cut and strong-looking as
then-living singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and the rest of her all-girl
pop band.

The trainer gave me a look. I didn't hire him, and I never did work on those arms.

Turns
out, though, I didn't have to. All I had to do was add 10 pounds of
belly flab and a C-section scar to my bod, and – voila – arms so cut
they could scratch glass.

I had no idea that one day a toddler
would become my one and only piece of fitness equipment. But there he
is, all smiles and 25 pounds of him, refusing his stroller, demanding
my arms and – constantly – handing me things.

Whenever Zev finds
a rock or a twig or a scrap of paper that tickles his fancy, he thrusts
it into my hands. I'm asked to carry pebbles, toys, even imaginary
balls. He'll sometimes inexplicably demand, with the utmost
earnestness, that I stop making dinner that very moment, accept one of
his toy trains and "hold it tight."

I think he'd store things in my nose if he could reach that high.

The
weekend that the Disneyland submarine ride made its triumphant return,
I stood in a two-hour line. In the heat. Without water. Carrying a
couple of rocks in my pocket and my son in my arms.

There was
plenty of time for people-watching, so I took note of the fact that
every parent I saw was holding stuff. Sticky stuff, messy stuff,
ridiculous stuff (the sunburned linebacker-looking-dude holding the
miniature pink Cinderella backpack was my favorite). One common theme
to the stuff: None of it seemed to belong to the parents themselves.
They were all just schlepping their kids' junk.

So when Hubby swung by completely unencumbered, I was furious.

"Where's the backpack?" I hissed at him.

"It's in the stroller," he said, motioning to some far-off corner of the theme park where he'd abandoned it. "It's heavy."

I
demanded that he go get it. Not only did the backpack contain my
wallet, but it is a backpack – it's supposed to be on our backs. My
first 45 minutes standing in that line confirmed that carrying a bunch
of junk is the whole point of parenthood. So get with the program,
buddy, and start schlepping.

Besides, carrying stuff may be the only thing keeping most parents from expanding at the same rate as the universe.

I
was in a dressing room at Bloomingdale's recently, trying on swimsuits
and thinking about that personal trainer I never hired. Zev had snagged
a number of bikinis off the low racks and carried them into the
dressing room. As I tried on one of my selections, he kept handing me
his. Without even thinking about it, I took one. Then another. Then a
third.

Before long, I was standing before a full-length mirror,
assessing the horror show that is my body, while holding fistfuls of
swimsuits.

"Zev!" I finally said, realizing what I was doing. "Please don't give me any more. I can't hold them."

If
I wouldn't hold them, Zev reasoned, then he should be allowed to hang
them on the dressing room hooks. So I hoisted him up, and while he
carefully and patience-testingly placed one swimsuit on a hook at a
time, I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror.

My thighs touched. My belly pooched. But … look at those arms! Unmistakably well-defined triceps. Undeniably strong biceps.

I
may have a few more pounds – and many more pebbles, twigs and toys – on
me than I'd like. But at least being Zev's living fanny pack has paid
off in one area: I finally have those arms I always wanted. They're cut
like TLC.

Sigh. I have to think that somewhere in the world, a health-conscious fitness trainer is laughing his rock-hard glutes off.