Smart Car Couple

I used to belong to Snap Fitness. The only unique feature about this gym was that it stayed open 24 hours a day, which is great for all those nights you wake up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. and remember, "Shit, I forgot to do abs." Of course, people rarely worked out during the third shift hours, which weren't staffed with an actual gym employees. But I heard from a Snap worker that one guy was caught tape lifting weights and staring intensely at himself in the mirror during unstaffed hours. What's so weird about that? He was stark naked while he was doing it.

Snap's clientele seemed to consist of all the people you'd never see at a regular gym. There was the Indian guy who only worked out in business casual attire, the dude with horrible BO who always wore the same Knicks jersey and hydrated with a two-liter bottle of Coke and the pack of women who moved faster getting into and out of their cars than they ever did while they were monopolizing the entire treadmill section and talking loudly for an hour and a half.

My favorite characters, however, were the Smart Car couple. These two portly lovers would expend an inordinate amount of energy struggling to get out of their ridiculous car before they ever even set foot in the gym. Why these two opted for such a tiny ride, I have no idea. But I do know this: It was entertaining as hell to watch them maneuver their giant carcasses out of it. Everybody stopped what they were doing to take in the scene. Even the smelly guy in the Knicks Jersey would put down his two-liter for a few minutes and enjoy the show. It was like watching people fighting to escape from a mangled, pulverized car wreck -- only with a lot more jiggling and a lot less blood and guts. Once they got of their comedic automobile, the Smart Car couple were all business. He'd head over to bikes, while she took her spot on an open treadmill. After about an hour, they'd switch. Day in and day out, these two would sweat it out at Drexel Hill's only 24-hour fitness establishment. They'd always spend at least an hour and a half in the gym -- not counting the 25-minutes of cardio they did getting out their car.

During this time, I stopped going to Snap for a pretty long stretch. When I finally dragged my sorry ass back there, I was miserable -- and sadly out of shape. I remember thinking the only thing that could make me feel better about myself would be watching my corpulent friends toiling to escape from their electric-powered death trap. And just then my favorite little Smart Car pulled into the parking lot. I stopped my half-hearted workout and settled in to enjoy the show. But there was no show to be had. The couple popped right out of their vehicle. No longer amorphous and blob-like, the Smart Car couple were now svelte and healthy -- each member at least 40 pounds lighter than I remembered. Why would two enormous human beings choose a micro-machine as their primary means of transportation? Because it forced them to think about how disgustingly big they'd allowed themselves to get each and every time they got into their car. Either find a way to get your fat ass to shed a few pounds or admit defeat and sell your tiny car to a buyer who will likely look at you like, "How the fuck did you fit into this thing?" The Smart Car couple: Founders of unorthodox, but highly effective Smart Car Diet.