Certain conversational gambits should come with warning flags. I've decided that any conversation I start that begins with the phrase "So I was on the elliptical, and I was thinking…" should be treated with the same level of skepticism and distrust given to any conversation that starts with "There was this one time at band camp…" Nine times out of ten, it's going to be a boring, dull recitation -- but it's the pesky tenth time around that'll get you when you're not looking, and make you wish you carried a big fat wad of mental floss in your pocket.

(Worried? See the title of this entry.)

So I'm on the elliptical, and one of the regulars hops on the machine next to me and starts aiming the remote control at the TV in front of us. "I absolutely cannot watch golf while exercising." Amen, sister; it makes me want to shoot myself, too. She flipped from channel to channel, eventually finding the correct channel, only to discover that it was true … there would be no Oprah to watch that day due to the damn golf.

Aside: What the hell is it about Oprah? I don't get it. Yes, the woman's got the on-screen magnetism of a hundred pounds of iron shavings zapped by lightning, but I guess I missed out on the cult membership. These women are devoted. They show up right before Oprah starts, and work out for the entire duration of the show, nodding and smiling along like very cute little suburban puppets. Luckily, they're so busy tuning in that they don't notice that I'm mouthing along with Eminem. It's probably good. They'd probably be offended. After all, most of them like me, because I'm a Good Girl just like them. If only they knew.

So she flips to the Food Network. She turns to me and shrugs and says, "You know, it's kind of like dangling a donut in front of the elliptical. In theory, I think it's supposed to make you want to work harder, but in truth, it just makes me want to go home and eat."

Suddenly, my workout is filled with visions of food. Tasty food. Hmm. I'm doing an überspiffy Italian-style pot roast for the Wednesday night dinner - what was the recipe saying about the varying tenderness of different cuts? Oh, yes, the good adage - the farther from the horn and the hoof you go, the more tender and mild the meat's going to be. This pot roast: untender yet tasty, thus requiring long simmering.

That's when the intracranial conversation jumped off the deep end. So what about animals that don't quite fit that configuration? Take humans, for instance. We're configured a little differently (see also general lack of horns and hooves) - I wonder what the most tender and tasty muscles on a human would be?

At this point, part of me is highly amused, and part of me is recoiling in horror. You know how sometimes you look at the people you meet in this world and think, "They really should be stopped for the good of humanity?" Imagine having that moment with yourself as the subject.

I mean, really. Don't get me wrong, I think some of my friends are tasty, but I can honestly say I've never thought of ANY of them as tasty in the worcestershire-and-a-little-lemon kind of way. Besides, do you realize how difficult it would be to fit a full-grown engineer into an enameled cast-iron stockpot? You think it's hard to wrestle a crab into a stockpot? That's an overgrown bug; imagine trying to wrestle a lid onto something that actually understands calculus!

Hell, I don't even understand calculus. Maybe I should be the one in the pot?

In all seriousness, I wonder which muscles qualify as 'tender' on humans. In even more seriousness, I wonder if I need professional help…but in rock-solid, kiss-your-grandmother-in-church-on-Sunday seriousness, I'm betting everyone who eats my pot roast tonight is gonna give it at least one funny look.

It's cow. I PROMISE…and if any of my friends turn up missing, I didn't have a damn thing to do with it.