Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

You know when it’s nice weather outside and you feel obligated to be out in the sun as much as possible? In that aspect, Saturday was an extremely productive day. Women’s Health magazine had a ARE YOU GAME? event all day, where everything was FREE: free fitness classes sponsored and taught by Crunch fitness instructors, free treatments from Oasis Day Spa, free FUZE drinks all day long (I had about 10) and the best cincher of the day-a free happy hour with free Michelob Ultra Light—I guess the healthiest way to booze. I’m sorry, I just can’t help typing “free.”

Ria and I did a street fighting course, complete with kamakaze-type head bands (which a few women refused to take off for the remainder of the day), a retro-robics class where we got free American Apparel leg warmers which everyone pulled on despite the 90 degree weather, and a free Women’s Health wife-beater (which sounds ironic) after shooting some hoops. Ria got extra points for shooting her ball into the Hudson River.

While we were high off of free goodness—we just couldn’t help but look the gift horse in the mouth.

Enter: the Women’s Health yoga mats, complete with a cute Women’s Health yoga mat bag. As we sipped our free beer, we had had enough. All day long, the only free item we did not score were those mats. And it killed us. Here we are, having fun, staying fit, shaking it while a fabulously gay man taught us moves to “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters and “Funkytown,” and in our hazy exhaustion we started to plot our scheme to score the free yoga mats that we were not offered because we missed the yoga class and missed the line for Pilates due to our kung foo-style, street fighter class.

When I say plot our scheme, I really mean slowly stroll by the white tents in the back of the park with beer in hand, to eyeball what was inside while the breeze flapped the tent entrance open every few minutes. No luck. I even ran to chase down a woman carrying about 20 mats, asking her if I could have one. The ones she were carrying were clearly extras, but she told me that if she gave me one, everyone else that didn’t take the yoga or pilates class would want one too. Boo. We followed her with our eyes to see where she went, but then she got lost in the sea of red shirts, which was the color the event staff wore in support of Women’s Health. Ah well.

But were then distracted by three children dancing to the Reggae Band that began to play during happy hour. They were so cute–which means a lot coming from me—a little blonde girl spinning around in a pink dress, and two little boys chasing each other. All of a sudden Ria freaked out—and told me that we were in the midst of a celebrity baby sighting. The fact that the kids had about five nannies confirmed it—they were the offspring of Heidi Klum and Seal! Too funny, or sick, depending on if you are either impressed or grossed out by the fact that Ria can spot celebrity children.

After Ria climbed the inflatable rock wall, the clock struck 4pm, and we realized we had been there since 10:30am and questioned if we should throw in the towel. Pondering the thought, we realized that the crowd had drastically changed from the time we first got there. While the morning and early afternoon attendees were mostly women in yoga pants and tank tops like us and much more family-oriented, as the afternoon continued and the Westside Highway got word of the free happy hour, you can only imagine how the crowd slowly morphed from women in sports bras to men with nipple piercings. ‘Nuff said. We grabbed about four more Fuze drinks and decided it was time to go. I think Ria actually took five.