Rowing Disaster

I fell off the rower. I was on the rowing machine at the gym last night and I fell off it.
In all honesty, it was a mistake to go on the rower when we did (I go to the gym with my nun friend and last time we went, we both did really well on the rower, so this time…) we decided to go on the rower as soon as we got to the gym – they are near the door and we always have that moment when we first get there of “hmmm, so, what shall we do today?”, so the rowers seemed obvious.

So we sat on the rowers, had the obligatory three minute discussion about rower logistics and were ready to go. We must have been rowing for about a minute before I fell off – somehow the seat of the rower evaded my bottom, whizzing away from under me and leaving me sitting on the metal bar that the seat is supposed to slide along. At this point, the nun and I started giggling, while I struggled to get the seat back – no easy task, I’ll tell you. With my feet stuck in the foot holders and unable to use the handles to pull me up (because they move – don’t they, silly), I made the discovery that if you fall off the rower, you’re doomed… there is just no way of getting back on, so the nun had to give me a bit of a hand with seat re-placement. I continued to giggle as I got back to my rowing – and all the while, the bloke next to me rowed on, pretending to be oblivious to my rowing antics and inappropriate giggling. How did he manage not to laugh? Someone falls off the rower next to you in a slapstick fashion and you manage to not even raise a smile? That’s impressive.