Long ago on a playground not so far away...

   Long ago on a playground not so far away (about 3 1/2 hours drive from where we currently live), a little girl was given a challenge.  The teacher instructed the children in class to do as many sit ups as they could without stopping.  If they stopped, they were done.  They were to get up and go to the end of the line.  Well, this little girl was already at the end of the line.  To her, it seemed the wait would never end.  She just stood there and watched.  The other students were very good at sit ups.  Would she be able to do them as well?  Soon she would move forward to hold someone's ankles while they gave it their best.  Then, it would be her turn.  The end of class was nearing.  Would the bell sound before she had her chance?  One boy had done one hundred and thirty sit ups during his turn.
   She went up to the designated area and lay down.  One of the students reached down and held her ankles tightly.  She began to do her sit ups.  It surprised her how easy they were.  She chuckled at how so many of her fellow students had grunted and complained.  She was on one hundred and fifty before the bell rang.  The teacher said it was time to finish up.  In the end, she had completed one hundred and sixty-nine sit ups.  She and the student who had held her feet needed a note from the teacher to get to their next class.  As the next class was coming in, she smiled at the teacher.  "I could have done more, you know?"  The teacher just smiled back and gave them each their hall passes.
   From that point on, the girl would have a special relationship with the sit up.  When she did physical fitness training while in the Army, she would sometimes be unable to do the maximum when it came to the required push ups or the run, but over the twenty one years she wore a uniform...she would always max the sit ups.  Even when they gave her rug burns, she loved doing sit ups.  She loved how easy they came to her.  She loved how they tightened her abdominal muscles.  She loved how her husband always noticed.  : )
   Her teenage son was watching her do sit ups on the floor of their living room not too long ago.  He looked at her quizzically.  "Do you do all those without stopping, without even pausing?"  "I haven't really thought about it, but I guess I do", she replied.  "My mind wonders when I do them.  I only think of the counting.  When I get one hundred, I stop because I have other things to do besides sit ups."
   Then she smiled.  "Besides, they are simple.  Every time I try to do ab exercises on that big orange ball your father bought me, I fall off."