I looked down at the buttons and pressed one. The Stairmaster God told me that I had burned 27 calories off my body so far.

"Why that's about half a carrot," he said. "I wonder if that's in kilocalories or calories?"

What was he trying to say? That after 10 minutes I had really only burned off .0027 calories--about one-tenth of a sugar granule on the chocolate chip cookie I ate in the dining hall?

"I just burned off 200 calories on the rowing machine downstairs," he volunteered.

Now I was angry. This guy looked about as capable of rowing as I did to play rugby for the Romanian Olympic team. He had more likely spent the last half-hour in the locker room reading MacWorld.

The machine began to slow down. A brief flash of hope told me that my prayer that the machine would break down forever had been answered. Then I realized that it was only the final "cool down" stage of the workout.

The screen gave me my final message: "Goal attained." I went back to my dorm and ate the half of a carrot I had just burned off. Then I ate a chocolate chip cookie.

OK, a box of chocolate chip cookies.

Beth L. Pinsker '93 has determined that she is undertall.