Stocktake sales, after Christmas purges, or just any other day is the perfect time to trim lard off the gut barge while adding a little to the wardrobe or even the living room set. Some people steal for necessity. Others for nefarious means of employment. Few see the opportunity to smother two flightless birds with one new suede jacket now 100% off and looking trim.
Worthwhile places of retail interests - where merchandise and items for sale exist to scorch holes in the hip pocket - provide nagging disincentives to steal, shoplift or otherwise make off with goods outside the normal exchange of legal tender. In a world of capitalistic pig dogs gnawing at industry and commerce, it's the essence and reminder of living the life of a model citizen. Of hoi polloi beyond the uniforms of sameness hounding the peons of communism.
Reminders as such in the form the rather ever present security tag. Ink bombs and splatter loads tag a subset, but for the purposes of real motivation void of morality, the former is the one of concern in this instance of exercise.
Listen to the rustle and hedonistic rabble of the shopping centres or retail stores. Every now and then, as presumably unsuspecting customers cross the threshold and through the sheepish gates of security, an alarm sounds.
Faces turn, mouth breathers gawp and the persons at the gates blush, step back and seek to sort out their momentary spotlight in embarrassment.
An opportunity for physical self-improvement gone to waste.
Now move, sucka (move sucka)
Whether the 100 metre dash, hurdles or a long winding marathon, they all have one initial thing in common. The starter's pistol. The bang that sets bail on the fleet of feet to run the track and take their course.
And so it is such with the security alarm set off by that DVD box set of the complete series of Arrested Development under the armpit. Or the pair of jeans straight from the change rooms of that swanky boutique where the androgyne behind the cash register only speaks in some European hogwash of an Australian accent. Or even that coveted action figure of Janis Joplin (because Jim Morrison was sold out).
Starter's pistol for the consumer. Heart pounds to the candid photo finish before the crack and a security guard peels on the heels as the race begins. Off like the Flash down through the food court, past the cemetery and on and out to lose a few calories in the process.
All the while knowing that motivation is literally at hand, or the shirt off your back, and the hot breath of a criminal record pushes the muscles better than a personal trainer wishes they could.
Exercise to accessorise.
Written on Tuesday, 30 December 2008