Whether or not it’s true, there are still theories that on December 21st, 2012, something drastic is going to happen to our planet. One of the theories I find most interesting is that our poles might drastically shift, making the North and South Poles trade their locations. Performing only cursory research on the internet, I discovered that even Albert Einstein, the intellect who redefined our understanding of the fabric of gravity, predicted in 1959 that something might happen on the Winter Solstice of 2012. I was once in the Scouts, and while disaster wasn’t always going to befall at every turn, we were still taught to be prepared.

With an intellect like Einstein’s guiding me, therefore, I’ve decided how to prepare myself just in case the poles do shift and our planet starts spinning in the opposite direction: I’m getting handlebars.

Test Day.

I bought a set of metal push-up bars. I knew palm comfort would be an issue, therefore I paid a little more for a set of bars with foam grips. Then came the question of how to fasten the bars to a sturdy surface, as well as what that surface should be. In the end, I decided that I would like them cemented directly to a concrete surface. Unsure how to go about mixing cement and incorporating the bars to the sidewalk outside of the house, I decided to search for alternative fastening methods until I could ask the first construction crew I come across on the freeway. The receipt on the bars said I had a 14-day window to return them in, and I wanted to find out if they could withstand the ordeal. That’s when I began to ask if I had enough strength to last through the shift.

I called my friend Joel and told him what I was trying to do, and then asked him if he would meet me at a park a few blocks from my house. I needed to find out where my strength stood, and then take that information and formulate a strength building routine that would help me reach my goal by 2012.

“How are you going to do that?” Joel asked me when he got to the park.

I asked him to follow me to the monkey bars.

Joel played football in high school, and also worked as a furniture delivery man for some time after that. I estimated, therefore, that he had enough strength in him to give me a fair representation of the cosmic force I would be conditioning myself to go up against. I reached my hands out to the monkey bars, and when I felt I had decent grip, I asked him to grab my legs around the shins.

There was a fire station next to the park, and the firefighters would sometimes exercise by taking walks in groups through the park. The presence of fully trained emergency care personnel was a good thing for me, since there were two of them on one of these walks who saw me hanging horizontally in the air as Joel pulled me by the legs and I screamed when I heard something pop in my shoulder, losing my grip and falling face first into the sand around the monkey bars.