Day 7: Stand up and be counted

As many of you would already know, I'm not so good with maths, neither am I really big on anything mathsy. But I used to love to play the little counting game as a kid. When I was a little girl, my dad would play "Spot the Merc and count to ten" with me. We'd race, as we were driving from one place to another, to count the mercedes that we could spot and the first one to reach ten would win. I think this pretty much made me a default Merc fan, but that's another story for another day. Of course my dad would always let me win. He'd pretend to have a merc radar and make little buzzing noises and I'd frantically look about for the elusive Merc I so believed he had yet to spot. My dad's a sweet man, really.

In any case, I may not be a math genius, but I can most surely count from one to ten. See: one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide with these numbers, I can count down from ten to one and even do multiplications. I'm good with one to ten.

Thing is, I've discovered a group of people that I've come to love and respect but that cannot seem to count properly. They are, ladies and gentlemen, my gym instructors. Yeah, the little fireballs of energy that shout and egg you on to do one more rep, to do one more set, to do one more crunch, squats, round around the track.

They'd say, "Come on girls, just three more sets... that's it, we're almost there." And I'd always buy it. When she says, three more reps, I start counting down... 3...2...1! And when I get to 1, I'm suppose to be done. Right? No. When you think they are done with you, they'd go, "That's it, come on, 8 more. You can do it!" And in my head I'm like "What!" But, see, this is where they get you, I actually believe them thinking, "Ok, last 8, come on, after this set, there's bound to be some reprieve of sorts." And I girt my teeth for another 8 reps of whatever that's making my muscles burn and scream. And then, after that 8, when you think that you've gotta be done she goes for another 8.... and the story continues.

Its amazing really. You'd think we'd all be wiser by now, at least, I thought I would. But, nah, I'll still fall for it the next time she asks me to do three more kicks or twists or hold my half-crunch-almost-dying position for three more lllllloooooonnngggg seconds. Yeah, she knows she's got my number.