Here's how Head 2 Head works: I throw out a debate between two people,
places or things, and you settle it by posting a comment.
Today's question: Which chore do you hate worse, doing laundry or working out?
Doing Laundry: Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Till bored to tears.
Pros: As opposed to lifting weights, folding socks is only brainless, not strenuous and brainless. There is the opportunity to chat up a cute single neighbor and grab a drink afterward, which happens all the time in commercials and is confirmed to have occurred exactly once in real life since electrical appliances were invented. To the braless, loose-shirted, hot chick who kept bending over into her cart that time in the late '90s: I'll never forget you, girl.
Cons: More often than not, strangers in a laundry room look like they were spawned from Ernest Borgnine's ass and have social skills that make the Unabomber look like a missing Hilton sibling. The only reason the murder rate of children in NYC isn't astronomical is because not enough licensed gun owners have visited The Mat on 89th and First, which doubles as a Great Adventure outing for every Latin household on the Upper East Side. That pair of granny panties that someone always leaves behind on the counter.
Working Out: Too much pain for too little gain.
Pros: Once you're married, you never have to do it again. A married guy hasn't been in a gym since Jack La Lanne and his boyfriend got hitched. On average, the clientele is more attractive than what you'd find on the street, and they're wearing less clothes. The large viewing windows in front of the aerobics studio deserve their own cover charge. When you're done, a wave of feel-good endorphins carries you through the rest of the day, providing the same lift as a three-martini lunch.
Cons: Within 100 years, working out will be replaced by taking a pill, but try not to think about that while bursting your brain's blood vessels doing shoulder presses. Not to be outdone by the gay sex in steam rooms that NYSC on 86th and Lex never cracked down on, an Equinox salesperson told me that their steam rooms are heterosexual-friendly "before 9 p.m." It's frustrating to keep seeing the same people at the gym who in such better shape than I am. Do they not eat eight hot dogs on one sitting? Do they not down 50 beers a week. What's the secret here?
As a married guy who DOES work out occasionally, I would have to say laundry is worse in the long run. When you first start a workout routine, though, that is worse because you are so out of shape that it hurts to do anything. Once you get in a routine, though, it's much better than laundry (which I remember during my single days, although it is a duty my wife forbid me to do the day we were married nearly nine years ago. I, apparently, was putting the wrong clothes together).
As to the large viewing windows in front of the aerobic studios deserving a cover charge, this is not the case at the YMCA I work out at in Wisconsin. Maybe it's because we have the highest percentage of fat people in the nation, doing little more than eating brats and cheese, and consuming vast quantities of Miller beer. The percentage of people wearing oversized t shirts to cover their wide bottoms is extremely high.
Posted by Joe DiGiovanni at April 17, 2003 12:15 PM