P90X v. Chocolate Champagne Cake

For Christmas, Joe asked for the P90X exercise videos and a pull-up bar. So that's what I gave him (along with some socks and some underwear that he also asked for because he was so insulted by his birthday gift of an adorable pair of madras shorts and slip-on black clogs to wear around the house that he insisted he get something he'd actually wear, but that's another blog post entirely). For some reason, however, he keeps asking me to work out with him as if his gift was one of those gifts that you get for someone else but you really wanted for yourself. I have assured him that his exercise videos are for him to enjoy all by himself and he does not have to share. Yet he persists in inviting me to partake in abdominal workouts after the kids go to bed and he is not using "abdominal workout" euphemistically!

Last night after dinner and Bunco (Dez won), Joe asked me if I wanted to do the abdominal workout with him after the kids were in bed -- I said no, that it takes me an entire day to mentally prepare for an abdominal workout and I couldn't possibly participate in one on such short notice.

This morning, he emails me at work, "Don't forget our abdominal workout tonight." I ignored him.

On his way home from work we were talking on the phone and he reminded me again about the workout, so I explained to him about how he was free to enjoy those exercise videos all on his own and was not obligated to invite me to join him. He has either forgotten that he told me that the p90X exercise videos are the "most intense workouts. Ever." Or he thinks I've forgotten. But more importantly, if you were a husband trying to convince your wife to workout with you, would you pick an abdominal workout from the "most intense workouts. Ever?" Of course not. You would pick the wrist and ankle workout or the earlobe workout or something else that wouldn't leave your wife unable to hoist herself to a sitting position in bed the following morning.

Joe thinks I've forgotten our dating and early married years when, in an effort to impress him with my youth and vitality, I would actually go with him to the gym. For the next three days, I couldn't walk and could barely breathe for the pain. Two or three years later, he would fool me into going again and I would be cursing him for a week. Well I've learned my lesson.

Tonight he actually tried to tell me that the reason he wanted me to do the abdominal workout was because he wanted me to see that it wasn't so bad (why would I think that the "most intense workouts -- ever" would be bad?). I guarantee you the next trick up his sleeve will be to tell me that he wants me to workout with him so that we can spend time together. I've fallen for that line before and ended up holding 12-foot sheets of drywall over my head for an afternoon. If he wants to spend time together, he can come to a quilting class with me, but we will not be bonding to the P90X "most extreme workouts." Ever.

Maybe he is beginning to understand that I'm a lost cause, because when he got home tonight from helping our friends, Winnie and Phil, get a mattress home from the store, he brought me this:

Winnie works at Neiman Marcus, so I'm thinking she must have sent them home with Joe. I love Winnie. Wouldn't you? I've eaten half of both of them. I like the chocolate one best. And don't you agree that it would be a betrayal to the chocolate champagne cake if I attempted to work it off by doing an abdominal workout? It was so good, it deserves to rest on my hips forever.