I have sunk to an all-time low. I have proven to myself that I am even more petty and competitive and ridiculous than I’d previously thought. And trust me, if you know me at all in real life, you know that my capacity for PCR behavior is quite high. But today? Just now? I’ve achieved an all-time high in my all-time low.
Here’s how.
On Friday’s “Live With Regis and Kelly”, Kelly and guest Jeremy Piven indulged themselves in a little “who can do more pushups” contest. If red hot Piven did twice as many as hot shot Ripa, Ripa would make a donation to his theater company. So they both got down on the floor, Piven in a classic casual pants and sweater/shirt combo and Ripa in long black shorts, white shirt, and signature high heels, and started their pushups.
Jeremy (here’s where I start getting familiar and call them by their first names) didn’t do 88, which is what he would have needed to double Kelly’s number. And see, here is where my pettiness comes in. See, this means that — hold on, carry the two, divide by 6, multiple by a factor of pi to the third power squared, subtract the square root of the lowest prime number above 111, and multiply by .265 — Kelly did 44. Which means I got intensely jealous and started to hate her because that’s a pretty impressive number of pushups, ‘specially for a girl ‘n’ all.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. From the moment I witnessed this display, sometime yesterday morning (yes, I recorded it) (shut up), until about 15 minutes ago, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I made it my mission to be able to do at least 44 pushups. Because I knew that as strong as I am, and as much as my arms are almost as butch as Madonna’s, I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to do as many pushups as the number of years I will be on my next birthday. At some point, in the not so distant future (a/k/a as soon as possible), I was going to beat the long shorts off of Kelly Ripa.
In the meantime, however, there was always rationalization. “It’s okay,” I told myself. “She’s eight years younger than I am. She should be able to do more than I can.” Then, “Even she said, when challenging Jeremy Piven, that having shorter arms makes it easier to do pushups. And she’s about three inches shorter than I am, so she has that advantage. Tyrannosaurus Rex!” Then, “Fuck it, bitch. You’re going DOWN!”
Now, it’s not entirely clear whether the bitch I referred to is me or Kelly Ripa. Or if the “going DOWN” referred to my beating her in pushups or my getting down on the floor. I’ll leave that up to your interpretation, because some things are better left a mystery.
So I got down. Me, in my cropped cargo pants and stretch tank top and pretty pedicure, on the little area rug in front of the same TV upon which I’d watched the Piven/Ripa showdown. And did a quick and cool 45.
Life is so very, very good.