Pushups with Bob

Bob suggested we all do pushups.

I guess I should mention that I don’t know Bob. Peter, my husband, knew Bob in high school. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure Peter and Bob were even close pals in high school. But Bob sent me a Facebook friend request shortly after he became Facebook friends with Peter and, even though I don’t know Bob, I accepted. Then Bob challenged me to do pushups.

“Join me in the pushup challenge!” Bob said.

I was delighted that I had been invited. I love the idea of a personal trainer — although I am far too cheap to hire one. Here was Bob, offering to provide encouragement and support, and that’s important, especially as we get older. A person can coast through their 30s and 40s without a care, and then one day, you flap your arms in the mirror and discover you look like a bat. It’s not good.

Now here was Bob, offering to save me from my bat wings. I was delighted.

Looking back on it now, I’m not sure Bob really intended for me to take up his challenge. I suspect he was thinking that other friends — friends he actually knew — might be inspired to start doing pushups with him every day. But I appreciate when someone challenges me to try something new. So, when Bob suggested that we should all start doing pushups, I started doing pushups.

I wasn’t very good at first.

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