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The Figure Eight
By Julie Stamper
I don't often watch TV. (By saying this, I don't include the PBS and
Disney that my kids have on in the background much of the day.) When I
do watch the tube, it is most certainly not to see an infomercial.
However, there I was, in my ninth month of pregnancy, crying and eating
am Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, contemplating my barge-like
existence, when Peggy Fleming appeared in front of me. She was calm and
glowing, almost angelic, like my fairy godmother had come to call. She
lulled me into a deep relaxed state, and I sat, watching her infomercial
for the Figure 8 exerciser for a full hour.
I trusted her; she was, after all THE Peggy Fleming: Olympic skater, breast cancer survivor, mother. She showed me her simple machine, and how, with the accompanying videotape, I too could have the slender, shapely legs of an athlete. She had other previously out-of-shape people on her little show to talk about how their legs, and therefore their lives, had changes irrevocably because of the Figure 8. I bought it, hook, line and sinker. It cost a whopping $75 dollars. It was a huge mistake.
I don't often exercise. I usually count chasing my two kids around as my major calorie burner. My asthma, which I haven't really had since I was about 17, provides another wonderful excuse to under-do it. My husband, who knows that I don't usually get into infomercials, exercise, or Peggy Fleming, was flabbergasted at this purchase. However, being a couple of weeks away from labor and highly hormonal, he wisely wrote it up to estrogen and let it pass.
The equipment arrived post-haste, and I set it up in the living room to look at. I was excited about the prospect of being able to wear my high school jeans again after this baby was born. The Figure 8 was then packed up and put in the basement until I was sleeping more than four hours a night and had any energy to exercise.
Ten months later, I was looking for the baby walker in the basement, and there she was -- Peggy Fleming, looking at me disgustedly from behind the dog kennel. Damn her. I carried her upstairs, popped in the video, and took my medicine. It took me about a week to figure out that Peggy is a big, fat liar. Not only were those exercises unpleasant and physically taxing (which is why I avoided exercise in the first place), but the video had no women with small children crawling all over them during the routine.
Ellie thought this all looked like great fun, and she put on a leotard (all little girls must dress for every occasion) and tried to hike her leg up under the bar with mommy. My son, who was crawling at the time, found it necessary to position himself under the falling iron bar to maximize his concussion potential. The dog found this all very distressing, and spent her time trying to lick me to be sure I was OK and conscious. Not only did I find the Figure 8 to not be cheap, fun, or easy, I found it has an eternal closet life, and if it is not to be used, it must be banished from the house.
Peggy was a contender; she wasn't going down that easy. When it was apparent I wouldn't be exercising, the Figure 8 sent radar waves into the financial sector of my husband's brain. Whenever I would complain about my weight, he would say, "Well whatever happened to the Figure 8?" soon to be followed by, "How much did that thing cost, anyway" I grew to hate the Figure 8, and all exercise equipment in general. I couldn't give the thing away. This week, after nearly two years of harassment by the blasted thing, I tried to take it to a consignment shop, hoping someone else would have a soft spot for Peggy and get sucked in as I had. No dice. The shop told me they had so much unused exercise equipment come in, and never sell, that they finally stopped carrying it altogether.
Schoolhouse Rock describes the Figure 8 as "a circle that goes round and round all by itself," and so here I am, full circle, knowing I will own this thing forever so I might as well use it -- right after I have this Peggy Fleming-induced asthma attack.
I hope Tanya Harding develops some leg toning equipment of her own (Knee Fit?) and puts the Figure 8 out of business.