The legend of Peanut Zorro
We bought an elliptical. Nothing went as planned. Then a hero emerged.
Like many Americans, Christina and I made a foolish pandemic purchase. We bought an elliptical, not because we’re (home) gym rats, but because we needed the perfect prop—a zero-impact running machine that goes nowhere—for the Groundhog Day production we staged at our place throughout the foul year of our lord 2020.
Well, folks, the NordicTrack people delivered. Big Time! After ordering online, we settled in for the edge-of-your-seat drama of the Supply Chain Waiting Game. To pass the time, I had some lovely calls with NordicTrack customer service about estimated delivery dates, the folly of estimating delivering dates “these days,” and their own lockdown purchases, which included bread machines, weighted blankets, and bidets. These weren’t exactly the most stimulating conversations, but 2020 wasn’t exactly a stimulating year. And while I never did get a straight answer on when our elliptical would be delivered, the phone calls did give us something to talk about over dinner, beyond the existential dread of lockdown living.
Then one day, my phone buzzed. It was a text message from NordicTrack saying two masked men would arrive at our place the next day to deliver the elliptical. The supply chain gods had finally smiled on us!
As promised, two masked men arrived bright and early. They lugged a gigantic box down a narrow hallway that led to our guest bedroom home office home gym. It took the masked men an hour to assemble the elliptical. Before they left, they promised we’d would soon be “fit as fuck.”
The following day, we entered our home gym. I suggested stretching first, but Christina shot that idea down.
“Stretching is for bums,” Christina said, a cigar clenched between her teeth. “You’re gonna eat lightning and you’re gonna crap thunder.”
Then she told Alexa to play Eye of the Tiger. Our training montage had begun.
For the next nine months, we did cardio twenty-two hours a day, pausing only to nap and lift weights. We also followed a strict paleo diet because that’s how the original hunter-gathers became hunting and gathering influencers.
Eventually, all that training turned our bodies into granite. Christina cashed in on her fitness fame by writing a bestseller called Running with the Devil: Why I Made a Faustian Bargain to Go Nowhere Fast. She also launched Low Impact, High Octane, Spotify’s highest-rated elliptical podcast. Finally, Christina entered into talks with a streamer to remake The Running Man with an all-female cast of fitness influencers. The working title is The Running Women, and the premise is that the most powerful, outspoken women in America are sentenced to participate in a game show where the contestants run from religious zealots who want to take away their reproductive freedom. Christina is pitching it as The Amazing Race meets The Handmaid’s Tale, but with a lot more explosions, jokes, and heart.
Meanwhile, unburdened by the constraints of patriarchy, I used my newfound granite physique to fuel my vanity. I posted shirtless photos of myself on Facebook to torment former lovers. I also parlayed my fitness fame into some serious cabbage. I signed endorsement deals with a holding company called Snake Oil Unlimited, which licensed my name to a scorpion-based protein powder, a crypto currency underwritten by my ego, and a meal-delivery app that sends healthy food to subscribers and junk food to people who cancel.
Unfortunately, wealth and vanity only brought me so much joy. But after tripping balls on some mushroom coffee Joe Rogan sent me, I had an epiphany. I needed a higher purpose, or what the French call, a raison d’être. That’s when I remembered what got me into fitness in the first place: REVENGE!
I grabbed my phone and told my assistant to call Ivan Drago, the Russian boxer who killed my best friend, Apollo Creed, in what was supposed to be an exhibition match. I said, “Drago, you fucked around, and now it’s time to find out.” Then, before the translator could tell Drago what I meant by that, I jumped on a plane to Siberia, where I trained by climbing snow-capped mountains and power-lifting family members beside a raging fire.
Eventually, it was time to smack that commie back into the previous century. I ran 2,000 miles to Moscow, drank a protein shake made from lion sweat and gorilla snot, and climbed into the ring. Drago said he would break me, but as it turned out, I broke him. Drago is in his mid-sixties and his bones are quite brittle. ANYWAY, I avenged Apollo’s death. But I felt shitty about beating up an old man, so I gave Drago a free subscription to my meal delivery app and promised him a cameo in Christina’s movie.
OK, that’s all bullshit. We didn’t become fitness influencers. In fact, after nine months, we had barely used the elliptical, which was collecting dust in our gym home office.
“I think we made a mistake,” Christina said. “We need to get rid of this thing.”
“I agree.”
“But?”
“What do you mean, but?”
“With you, there’s always a but, honey.”
I looked at the elliptical, then at the doorway, then back at the elliptical.
“OK, there is a but,” I said.
“I knew it!”
“Remember when the guys came to deliver the elliptical? They assembled it in this room because it won’t fit through the doorway, and if it doesn’t fit in the doorway, it won’t fit in the hallway either.”
“I think it’ll fit,” Christina said.
“Let’s measure.”
So, we measured. I used a measuring tape and quickly concluded there was no way to get the elliptical out of the room. But Christina, who chose to “eyeball it,” thought the elliptical could pass with room to spare. All we had to do was pivot.
“OK, that didn’t work,” Christina said.
We were huffing and puffing. Attempting to move the elliptical was actually a helluva workout, better than running in place!
“I didn’t hear you,” I said.
“I said, you were right.”
It felt good to be right. Really good. But that good feeling didn’t last long because I realized we’d have to disassemble the elliptical. After that, we’d be able to move the disassembled elliptical to the garage. But after that, I wasn’t sure what we’d do.
“I think we just need to remove the arms,” Christina said. “Well, on second thought, the arms are connected to the foot pedals. So arms and foot pedals. That’s all.”
It took us twice as long to partially disassemble the elliptical as it took the masked men to complete the full build. We also cursed a lot more, took breaks to hydrate, and vowed never to purchase home exercise equipment again. But eventually, we undid what the masked men had done and lugged the remains of the elliptical to our garage.
“So… I guess we try to sell it,” Christina said.
“I’ll make some calls.”
As it turned out, the market for slightly used, partially disassembled ellipticals was nonexistent. But after phoning several sporting good stores that sell used exercise equipment, I realized that the market for slightly used, fully assembled ellipticals wasn’t much better.
“We rarely buy ellipticals,” the owner of one local sporting good store told me. “They take up too much floor space. Also, nine times out of ten, the buyer tries to sell it back to us because they don’t use it. Personally, I hate the things.”
I broke the bad news to Christina.
“Nobody wants to buy it,” I said.
“What about giving it to Good Will?”
“We have to get it there, and the disassembled elliptical won’t fit in our car.”
“Are you sure?” Christina asked.
Once again, Christina “eyeballed it.” And once again I measured.
“OK, you’re probably right,” Christina said. “I’m leaving it up to you. But I really don’t want it to end up in a landfill.”
I joined the our local “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook. A few people expressed interest in our elliptical, but a few more people shared their stories about the excitement of buying an elliptical and the eventual, inevitable, hassle of disposing of it after they realized they weren’t ever going to use said elliptical. Feeling stuck, I made a list of options.
Smash the elliptical into smaller pieces, drive it to a landfill, and lie to Christina about how I had disposed of the exercise equipment folly of 2020.
Leave our garage door open and hope that a gang of fitness fanatics steals it.
Sell our house and insist that the buyer keep the elliptical.
Arson.Craigslist?
I decided to give Craigslist a try. In the free section, I posted an ad explaining the sad saga of our slightly used, partially disassembled elliptical. To my surprise, dozens of people responded immediately.
But I didn’t know who to pick. I also wasn’t sure if I was doing them a favor, or if they were doing me a favor. What was clear was that the care and feeding of this unruly mechanical beast would soon be someone else’s problem, and that someone, I decided, ought to be better equipped than us to deal with this damn thing.
I needed a hero with a truck. And that’s when a man who signed his emails “Peanut Zorro” came to my rescue. I told him he could have the elliptical for free if he could haul it away. Peanut Zorro said he could be there in ten minutes.
Nine minutes later, a truck pulled into our driveway.
“Are you Peanut Zorro?” I asked.
Peanut Zorro nodded.
“Well, here’s the elliptical. Are you sure you want it?”
Again, Peanut Zorro nodded. Then he dropped the tailgate on his truck and began loading the smaller pieces onto the truck bed.
“I’ll help you with main piece,” I said.
Without another word shared between us, Peanut Zorro and I hoisted the elliptical onto the back of the truck. Then he closed the tailgate, and we bumped fists.
“Sorry,” I said as Peanut Zorro walked back to the cab of his truck. “But I’ve gotta ask. What are you going to do with it?”
“Fix, sell.”
Clearly, Peanut Zorro was a man of few words. But I pressed on with my inquiry.
“It’s not so easy to sell these things,” I said.
Peanut Zorro shrugged.
“People think they’re great, but then they buy one and it gathers dust, and then they end up giving it away to a stranger on Craigslist.”
Peanut Zorro shrugged again.
“What if you can’t sell it?” I asked.
“I sell.”
“But how?”
“People want new. Supply chain slow. I sell used today for half price, delivered.”
Suddenly, I realized I was in the presence of greatness. Instead of playing the Supply Chain Waiting game with NordicTrack, followed by the Undo It Yourself game with Christina, we should’ve just called Peanut Zorro. If we had done that in the first place, our Influencer Fitness Fantasy sequence would’ve been half price and zero hassle.
The name Peanut Zorro reminds me of a substitute teacher I had in high school. I'll never forget his name. It was Percy McNut.
Only 1 way to move bulky furniture: PIVOT!