Pride Goeth With An Injury

Having been rescued from our bathroom floor while wearing my crossword puzzle pajamas, I would have thought that I had parted company with any remaining vestiges of pride I might have had, but no--I still had more to lose.  I have started using the new cool elliptical machine with fan at the gym, and was feeling quite proud of myself and rather strong.  Saturday I showed up at the gym to find all the fan ellipticals taken, so I decided to use one of the old, mundane ones for the day.  I climbed on, and--having finally learned my lesson, albeit slowly--set the machine to level 1.  I started stepping, and the lights started blinking.  It had paused.  Thinking I had somehow hit a button with my book, I hit start and we were off again..........or not.  It was on "pause" again.  Start. Pause. Start. Pause.  After the fourth or fifth round, I finally realized the machine thought I had stopped because I was going so slowly.  I have endured the ER experience, hosting parties in pajamas, being yanked around by a man at least 10 years younger than me, but being told by a machine that it can't tell the difference between being stopped and my exercise speed is maybe a new low.........