July, 2012 – Don’t Just Sit There

As I Was Saying

Don’t Just Sit There

By Alan Williamson

            There you are. I see you sitting there in your comfy chair, in your air conditioned room, with your fancy digital devices and your empty box of Mr. WaffleHuffle breakfast waffles now with real cranberry. Life is pretty sweet, right? Well, don’t be so sure, waffle breath.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news – you better sit down for this – but it turns out sitting is bad for you. Sorry to dupe you into sitting just now; I mean you no harm. In fact, I urge you to please rise, because the more you sit, health experts say, the worse things get.

          Spend too much of each day sitting, and you could get critically fat, have a heart attack and even die. And then there are the dangers of second hand sitting, with your motionless mass causing major hardship and hazard to those who have to maneuver around you to turn lamps on and off, water plants, or dial 9-1-1.

          A survey shows that Americans spend more than half their time in a seated position each day, logging endless hours sitting at the office, in their cars, on a computer or in front of a TV. Sitting can quickly spiral out of control, even if you don’t think of yourself as the sedentary type.  

Take me, a lifelong runner and noted climber of stairs at airports and office buildings. As I write this, I’m sitting in my family room, scrawling my thoughts down the old fashioned way, putting pen to pad. It’s hard work, pushing the pen across the page, but I gut it out because, frankly, I need the exercise. When I fill up a couple of pages, I’ll walk the 20 feet to my spare room where I’ll sit down at my computer and transcribe everything from my pad into a Word document. By the time I’m finished, I’ll have been sitting for about three and a half solid hours, interrupted only by the brisk 20 foot walk from my family room.

With some final editing on this column requiring a change of scenery, now it’s time to really get moving. I walk the 25 feet to my car (resting briefly only once at the halfway point) and settle into the driver’s seat for the ride to the library. I park as far from the door as I can and hoof it in. Once inside, I find a small table near the door where I take a seat and resume writing.

And then, the perils of sitting take hold of me in a way I could never anticipate. As I lean slightly forward to tear out a page from my pad, I feel something tug at the back of my pants. Trying to move a little more, I realize that I am now fastened to the chair, a belt loop from my pants having somehow gotten tangled with the chair back’s curlicues of wrought iron metal. No problem, I think. I’ll just reach back and unhook myself. The chair had other ideas.

Trying to hide my predicament from people passing by, I calmly wriggle in my seat, reaching back to try and pull my belt loop up and over the swirling metal design that put my behind bars. The belt loop that got hung up is directly in back of me, so I can’t see what I’m doing. Judging from the vice-like grip the chair now has me in, what I’m doing is sealing my fate.

As the minutes drag on and my pants and the chair grow more intimate, I look desperately around the library for a compassionate soul. A woman sitting at a table five feet away looks promising, so I swallow my pride, clear my throat and say words to a stranger I could never have imagined saying:

“Excuse me, I hate to bother you, but I seem to have impaled my pants on the back of my chair and I can’t get up,” I announce pathetically.

She looks up from her smart phone suspiciously at first, but when her eyes drift down to my shackled waistband she smiles sympathetically.

“Wow, you sure do seem to have gotten yourself in a bind,” she laughs. “Let’s take a look.”

“This isn’t one of my finer moments,” I mumble, trying to redeem some shred of dignity. But dignity is a bit of a luxury when a small metal chair has taken you hostage and a woman you don’t know is crouching on the floor behind you fumbling with the waistband of your pants.

“Got it!” she shrieks, after tussling with the twisted mess for two of the longest minutes of my life.

“Wow, I can’t thank you enough,” I gush, feeling like a man whose lawyer just sprung him from prison.

“Glad I could help,” she chuckles. “Have a good day . . . and be careful out there.”

“I will,” I say, gathering my stuff and heading out the door. As I walk away, I vow to myself to cut down on sitting, and to inspire others to do the same. My message, born from painful personal experience, is a simple one:

Sit less, move more. Your body will benefit. Your brain will benefit. And, with a little bit of luck, your belt loops will be scandal free.