Kicking Butt and Loosing Mine

I think I may have finally found the perfect workout for me. The "15-minute Butt-Kicking Workout."

I have been remiss in butt-kicking lately. I have a lot of stored-up butt-kicking energy. I could really, well, kick butt at butt-kicking.

It helped that I had to drive in Iowa City/Coralville on a Saturday. Apparently Saturday is another way of saying "Morons Out Driving Around With the Sole Purpose of Pissing Me Off Day." Everyone has their little auto-pilot, cow-trail that they drive to and from work all week, then the weekend comes and they are overwhelmed by driving options. Should they drive faster? Slower? Drive in this lane or that one? Maybe right between the two. Run the red light? Well, duh, of course. Take up two parking spaces? Hell, why not go two-wide, and pull so far forward you take up four?

Those drivers needed a little butt-kicking.

On the off chance they actually have a destination in mind, they don't leave that inability to make a decision in the parking lot. Hellooo Ladies, decide which handbag you want to buy before you get to the check out. Do not ask the cashier for her advice. Do not model them for her and do not ask her to model them for you. Do not make me fantasize about 36 ways to strangle you with the strap of the purse you may or may not purchase.

You need your butt kicked. And I am just the person to do it.

Because apparently by kicking your butt, I will be making my butt smaller.
I had never heard of this particular work out before I saw it mentioned on the cover of "Get Fit and Look Like This Pencil Thin 16-Year Old Model (When Pigs Fly)*" magazine (*name has been changed to protect me from lawsuits).

It was the "Walk-Off the Weight" headline that first grabbed my attention. I wondered if this WOW would be somehow different from the WOW article in the magazine by my bed. Or the one by the couch. Or the one in the bathroom. Or the two that I've dog-eared and tossed in the "to be looked at some time in the future when I have time" magazine pile.

'Cause I gotta tell you, I've been a little disappointed in those workouts. I'm walking up and down the stairs doing laundry, walking around the kitchen making dinner, walking from the couch to the fridge, walking from the house to the car, from the car to the church or school or the mall or the grocery store, and I'm just not seeing any results.

Yeah, sure, maybe I'm not exactly following the workouts to the letter. Maybe I'm not really following them at all. But I have read them. OK, skimmed is probably more accurate. At least I bought the magazine and thought about reading it.

I thought mental exercise was supposed to be good for you. Let me tell you, in my mind I have exercised the hell out of those workouts. I've thought about walking. I've thought about getting up early to walk. I've thought about doing the "lunge step" and the "tick-tock walk" and the....

Well, OK, those last two I mostly thought about how I wouldn't be caught dead doing them. I mean really. They want me to swing my leg out to the side then back to the front, like a pendulum, for each step? In public? The last time I did something like that we had just closed down the bar and we called it "staggering." I'm pretty sure there were no calories burned off that night. And we were just lucky that no one got their butts kicked.

Which brings me back to the butt-kicking workout. I think someone at that magazine needs to have their butt kicked. Because when I found the article about that workout, it never mentioned anything about kicking anyone's butt. It was the same old lunges and squeezes and squats and leg lifts. Nothing about kickin' butt and taking names. Nada.

Which could mean that I have just stumbled upon The. Greatest. Fitness Craze. Ever. Forget Pilates and Tae Bo and Jazzercise. "Kick Butt Butt-Kicking' " will -- you guessed it -- kick butt.

Imagine rows of exercisers standing behind foam-butted mannequins. The instructor calls out: "With your right leg now, 'You stupid, (kick), moron, (kick), you cut me, (kick), off! (kick)
"And your left leg, 'The sign, (kick), says 10, (kick), items, (kick), or less! (kick)"

You can work out your aggressions and your glutes. I will be mellow, and I will have no butt.
But not so mellow that I quit feeling the need to kick butt. Which is another reason why this is the perfect work out: There is a never-ending supply of people who really, really need to have their butt kicked.

And I'm just the person to do it.