Of all the TV we watched over the holidays, nothing intrigued my father more than the commercials for exercise equipement. Whenever a commercial came on for a piece of “revolutionary” exercise equipment, my father would lean forward on the couch, his eyes wide, and take it all in.
“How would you like to reach your true potential? How would you like to take 10 years off your life? How would you like to wake up in the morning in just 14 days, look in the mirror, and say hello to the new you?”
This was music to my father’s ears.
He has owned several pieces of exercise equipment over the years. There was the odd-looking stationary bike that also doubled as a home gym. There were the tangles of pulleys that somehow gave one “abs of steel” in “just minutes a day.” They all had names like “The Gut Wrecker” and “Flab Fighter II” and “Slide & Slim 2000.” (“Simply slide, slide, slide your way to a new you!”) Before the end of every informercial, before the announcer had even gotten to the “three easy payments” part, my father was already writing down the call-now number on a piece of paper.
“Maybe that’s what your mother and I need,” he’d say, pointing at the screen. “Maybe that’s what will help me get back into fighting shape.” Then he’d throw a few phantom punches from his sitting position on the couch: left, right, left right, uppercut. “See? I still got it,” he’d say, his breathing a little more labored now.
He told me a story about how he’d recently bought one of those inflatable exercise balls. After a few days of use, he explained to me, he decided he didn’t like it, that it’s not for him. So his plan is to deflate it, box it up, and take the slightly used exercise ball back to the store for the $12 refund. The idea of my dad taking time out of his day to return an exercise ball–I can see him handing the receipt to the cashier and trying to explain why he’s returning it–makes me wince for some reason.
A couple Christmases ago I gave him a copy of EA Sports Active for the Wii–the interactive exercise program that features a couple of rubber bands and a game disc that explains how to use those rubber bands. I don’t know if he ever actually tried to use it. I hope, in retrospect, that he didn’t. The thought of him trying to get the Wii working–no small task for him–then figuring out how those rubber band things function truly pains me. He never mentioned EA Sports Active to me, which means he either never tried it, or else he tried it and mortified himself.
He was once so strong and loomed so large that he used to encourage my brother and I to sit on his back while he did push-ups off the living room floor at night. Even after his beer belly came in–and boy, did it ever come in–he still maintained his arm strength. He’d hold his clenched hands above his dinner plate at night, saying, “One fist of iron, the other of steel; if the right one doesn’t get you then the left one will.”
He was always so huge in my mind. But now, as he approaches 70, as he works so hard to keep his blood sugar in check, he has become two things I never thought he would become: he’s small and slight. We have a running joke in the family about my dad now having to purchase all of his clothes in the Boys Department. “Hey dad, Sears is having a sale on Boys summer wear, you should go and check it out,” etc. Sometimes he laughs at these jokes. Other times he doesn’t.
He’s so little now that sometimes I think that I could very easily pick him up off his feet and cradle him in my arms.
It’s time for stage 5-2, the 46th stage of the game. Only 55 more stages to go, people. (I got this…I think.) The name of the game today is, once again, brick breaking. Yes, more of those chocolate bar-type bricks are clogging up this stage, preventing Mario from doing what he needs to do, i.e. getting the key and heading out the door. There is, thankfully, a chocolate bar-busting hammer power-up at the very top of the level. I spent the bulk of the level doing this: climbing up to the hammer power-up, then carrying the hammer to the parts of the level where it was needed most.
There are a pair of bipedal enemies patrolling the area where the hammer power-up is located. They could be turtles, or mummies, or mummy-turtles. Who knows. Also: they are as harmless as Carebears. Feel free to take one of their heads out for a ride. See what I mean? Harmless.
Anyway, the hammer power-up will get the turtle-mummies out of the way once and for all. Once you have the hammer, head to the left towards a spot on the floor that looks darker in color. These bricks are vulnerable to your hammer, and will get chopped out as you walk over them, allowing you passage back down to the lower parts of the level.
Pro Tip: Should the hammer power-up begin to flag at any point, don’t fret! Simply return to the spot where it’s located at the top of the and acquire a new one.
With a hammer power-up at full bore, drop down through your self-created hole, and allow yourself to “fall” along the crude set of stairs the platforms provide. Once you’re at the bottom, head right, knocking away the bricks protecting a new kind of enemy: a disembodied skull which hurls femurs at random intervals. This enemy appears to be on loan from Castlevania II and IV.
Take care to avoid those airborne femurs, then give him a taste of the hammer. Once he’s gone, keep moving to the right, taking out the next row of chocolate-like bricks. On the far side of this now-busted wall is the key. Grab it, then head for the nearby door.
Like the previous stage, your biggest enemy here is time. My first attempt this morning resulted in me having to listen to the game’s “You’re Running Out of Time!!!!!!!” theme, which has to be one of the most annoying pieces of music ever written. If they’d played this godforsaken song instead of Van Halen outside of Noriega’s compound in 1990, I’m certain he’d have surrendered much sooner.
