what's the antonym for shred? i think i want that

I’m trying to get into shape, ideally any shape that a) doesn’t resemble a potato and b) makes it easier to pick up a potato. And so a friend gave me a Jillian Michael’s workout video called 30 Day Shred. 30 Day Shred; I was immediately drawn to that title. Shred… shredding doesn’t sound too intimidating. I mean I’m used to shredding things. Like paper. Confidential tax information. Counterfeit money in times of police raid. I can shred with my eyes closed! Of course the manufacturer doesn’t recommend it. But I love shredded cheese. Also Frosted Shredded Mini Wheats. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I knew this workout was for me.

I had to fill empty vodka and waragi (local gin) bottles with water to use in lieu of weights because, not surprisingly, there’s no sporting goods store in Kisoro. If there were a sporting goods store I’m thinking the equipment section would just have babies and hoes and giant sacks of coal; people here don’t exactly need Jillian to tell them to get on down to the borehole. But because I’m a fan of irony and I’m pretty sure my old friend waragi is the reason I need so much shredding anyway, I really don’t mind using the bottles.

What I really do mind, two workouts in, is the overall working out part of the video. It’s like What we have here is a woman who has esentially turned indecisiveness into a workout. First we’re on the floor. Then we’re up doing jumping jacks. Then back to the floor. Why didn’t we just stay here in the first place? And what is this strange, painful sensation? Oh, I see, that’s what muscle contraction feels like…wait, back up? Seriously? And now we’re jumping rope without a rope? Why no rope? That’s lame. I should just use a rope. What’s it to her anyway? Look at her face. She thinks she’s soooo…no, not the floor again! Let’s just stay up here imaginary jump roping! I swear I love pretending there’s a rope. No, I didn’t call it lame. You’re lame! Don’t make me get back down on the floor. It’s dirty and there are tiny spiders. I wish this waragi bottle wasn’t filled with water.

Two workouts in. Just two workouts and I can no longer stand the thought of shredding. Seriously, when I go home and start working as a nurse, I’m just going to throw patient information on the floor when I’m through with it. I’m going to eat my cheese in block form. Shredded Mini Wheats? No thanks, I’ll just pop a vanilla Tic Tac and chew on a wheat stalk. Ugandans don’t even know how lucky they have it! Don’t go to the borehole, die of dehydration. Don’t go out and dig in the garden, die of starvation. Now there’s an ultimatum that would probably motivate even me.

if you ask me, pogosticks just plain encourage childhood obesity

There’s a truly awful movie playing in Kampala right now involving cheery Hooters waitresses, a perplexing restraining order and an Unstoppable train which proves to be quite stoppable after all. Pretty darn stoppable. So entirely stoppable, in fact, I have to wonder if Hollywood didn’t consider less deceptive alternative titles like Unstoppable for a short time, then quite Stoppable or The train that would eventually slow down until it could only accurately be called Stopped.

My life may not be filled with jumping waitresses, hastily placed restraining orders or awkward dialogue, or at the very least not jumping waitresses, but it also doesn’t cost me 16,000 shillings ($8) and if it did have a title I assure you it would be something honest, something straightforward…something like ‘My bus caught on fire the other day, but it was Stoppable.’ Because the other weekend, after a painfully long day of travel to the capital with just 40 kilometers left to go, my bus caught on fire and I was forced to elegantly jump out of the window to escape. Of course by “elegantly” I mean my skirt fanned out in an extremely elegant manner to reveal my elegantly polka-dotted underwear, which elegant women call delicates, to the group of men standing below. And also that I refrained from stringing together a long series of swear words, which elegant women call expletives, when I felt blood trickling from my elbow and foot, which elegant women call appendages, and instead laced said expletives into a series of elegant sentences in subsequent phone calls to the Peace Corps nurse and my boyfriend, who both quite inexplicably responded with Unstoppable laughter.

Now at least one of these people has literally been trained and certified in sympathy and I’m fairly certain the second grew up in a time and place where neighbors actually did strange things like bake casserole for you when your pet or child died instead of secretly poisoning your pet or child so they could get a full night’s sleep. And so I was understandably confused until I realized the mental image of me jumping from a bus window is actually somewhat funny. I don’t really jump. I hate hopscotch. I break my mother’s back every time I get to a particularly cracked part of the sidewalk. I had a pogostick once but I was never quite heavy enough to coax the pogo down the stick. I had to have a friend literally coach me off the top bunk of an unusually designed hostel bunk bed a few months back and it still took me a full five minutes to get down. And I really had to pee, which elegant women call to tinkle. Also, my reaction speed isn’t great; I thought I felt a spider crawling around inside my shirt yesterday and literally finished my cup of tea before investigating.

Yes, the odds of a successful and timely bus escape were set against me, but given the general state of confusion and panic on the bus and my general lack of familiarity with the word “FIRE!” or the phrase “Calm down white girl, we’re not being hijacked” in even one of Uganda’s 43 colorful languages, I actually thought our bus was being hijacked and was happy to jump. Maybe not as happy to jump as a fake waitress frightened by an altogether stoppable train, but awfully close.