The idea of buying a treadmill made sense. I needed to exercise and a treadmill would let me “walk” in my living room while I watched Oprah. I would tone up, and maybe lose a few pounds. Perfect!

The treadmill box arrived at my home as expected. It was a huge box. My first thought was to call my guy friend, my neighbor, my dad, any man to ask them to help me with the box and the assembly. Then I stopped, gave myself a mental dope slap, and realized I could do this myself, I was a capable woman. A Light-Bulb Moment!—Gloria Steinem would be proud.

I pushed the box into my home with the help of a two-wheel gizmo that helped me get other things in the house. I am told it is called a truck in the world of moving things—that description is lost on me as there was nothing truck like about it—but hey whatever.

When I opened the carton, I was surprised to see a few plastic bags with pieces of my treadmill with assembly instructions that were in English, but read like Greek to me.

I dumped the bags of parts on the floor and exhaled. Ok, I thought, how hard could this be?

Place part A into slot B and join into C and D. My head was spinning, but I was determined. I could feel the flop sweat dripping off my forehead as I was joining slots into parts and sliding a rubber floor mat thingy onto what I hoped was the walking part of the treadmill.

Two hours later, what resembled a treadmill was perched on my living room floor. I got on it and started to walk. It worked! Yippee! The only remaining task was to place the mile tracker on the front of the handle bar. A double check of the instruction sheet showed a diagram and list of the parts required. I needed four parts to complete the task and had six! Where in the world did the extra parts go? I decided to keep moving forward and attach the tracker to the handle bar. A few minutes later, I had it installed. I did not realize I had placed it on the handle bar backwards until I got on the treadmill to review my work.

No problem I thought, I grabbed my tools and attempted to remove the tracker. It would not budge! Now what? Frustrated I took a break. Determined not to call a dude to help me, I assessed the situation.

I have a working treadmill.

I can’t check my walking progress while on the treadmill.

I have two extra parts.

Realizing things could be much worse, I tossed the two spare parts in my junk drawer pushed the treadmill in front of the hall mirror (in case I wanted to glance at the mile tracker) and started walking.

When I felt like surprising myself, I moved the treadmill from the mirror and waited until I got off the treadmill to see how many miles I walked.

It felt good to transform bags of parts into a treadmill and use it toward my goal of getting healthy.

The treadmill continued to work without the two extra parts that were still residents in my junk drawer.

I enjoyed the journey of sweat, giggles, and laughs of assembling the treadmill and then using it on a regular basis.

Exercise and Humor! What a blast!