Anyone who travels a lot on business will tell you that it isn’t easy: eating at a different restaurant every night, having the maid leave little chocolate mints on your pillow, ordering a late-night hors d’oeuvre platter from Room Service while you watch in-room movies such as Nubile Olympic Gymnasts Visit the Petting Zoo, and all the other little hassles and inconveniences that go with life “on the road.” But for the businessperson who’s into physical fitness, there’s yet another problem: finding a way to work out. Here are some suggestions.

Without question, the best way to work out in your hotel room is to turn on the television at the crack of dawn and watch one of the morning workout shows featuring the Obscenely Cheerful Leotard Women. Believe me, there’s no more invigorating way to start the day than to lie in a darkened hotel room and listen to these women leap around and shout encouragement at you until you work up the energy to hurl your hors d’oeuvre tray at the TV screen and order Room Service to send up several orders of pancakes immediately.

Although a few forward-looking hotels now offer a service whereby a staff person from a third-world nation will do your running for you while you are in meetings, in most cases you must still attend to this tiresome chore yourself. This isn’t so bad if your hotel is located in, say, Nebraska, where the only danger you face on the street is that you might trip over a pig. But it can be a real problem if you’re in a large urban area such as New York City, where the vast majority of the people on the street are drug addicts, pickpockets, muggers, rapists, murderers, or partners in advertising agencies.

This doesn’t mean you can’t run: it means you must take steps to protect yourself. A gun will do you no good. It would just be stolen. No, what you need is a safety device I designed especially to solve this problem—the Urban Runner’s Simulated Gaping Chest Wound, which operates on the proven scientific principle that no urban resident will go anywhere near a person who is clearly in desperate need of help.

With your Simulated Gaping Chest Wound strapped on, you can jog anywhere you want in New York City, and you’ll attract no more attention than the apparently deceased persons sprawled on the sidewalks, or the random street lunatics holding lengthy debates with individual oxygen atoms. For extra privacy, you can purchase the optional 3,500 Simulated Maggots Eating Your Body accessory.

These devices, incidentally, are part of an entire Dave Barry line of Traveling Executive Fitness Products, which also includes the Heavy Briefcase. This appears from the outside to be a normal leather briefcase, but hidden inside is a 350-pound weight!

(There’s also a roomy compartment capable of holding your cigarette, or part of your pen.) Executives who regularly carry the Heavy Briefcase report a dramatic improvement in arm length.

The In-Flight Workout Device is a portable device that, when folded up, fits inside a handy steamer trunk that can be carried on board a commercial aircraft, provided you purchase two adjacent first-class seats for it, yet unfolds after takeoff to form a complete “airborne gymnasium.” It features a sophisticated electronic digital computer “brain” that not only monitors your pulse rate, but also has a new and improved electronic circuitry design which we sincerely believe and hope will correct the unfortunate problem whereby it was somehow seizing control of the automatic pilot and steering planes into various mountains, which is, of course, a violation of federal regulations.

Most of us males, at one time or another, have felt like Joe, the scrawny little wimp in the old Charles Atlas advertisement who was humiliated in front of his girlfriend on the beach when the muscular bully kicked sand in his face. As you’ll recall, Joe sent away for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course, then came back to the beach with large, bulging, rippling muscles. When the bully returned, he was extremely impressed and suggested that Joe should also apply oil to his body so that it would have a satiny gleam, and perhaps shave his armpits. Before long, they were very close friends and often helped each other select posing outfits.

You may feel that this is the kind of story that “only happens in comic books,” but in fact it can happen to you, too—provided you have the discipline, drive, endurance, and just plain old-fashioned guts required to procure the necessary steroids.

Ha ha! Just a little fitness humor there. You don’t need to ingest pharmaceutical substances to develop a major body; you simply have to follow the simple-to-follow instructions in this chapter. But first, let’s answer some commonly asked questions about bodybuilding.

Q. I’m a man. How large should I let my muscles get?

A. This depends on the size of your head. See, your body has only a certain number (21,796,349,582) of cells. Each of these cells can be either part of your body or part of your head. This means if you make your body bigger, your head has to get smaller. So you should cease your muscle development as soon as you start noticing the warning signs of severe head reduction, such as:

Buying lawn ornaments

Having trouble following the plot on “Dukes of Hazzard”

Answering to the name “Vinnie”

If you already meet any of these criteria, you probably shouldn’t do any bodybuilding at all. Of course, if you already meet any of these criteria, you’re probably still trying to figure out how to get this book open.

Q. Can a woman such as myself engage in bodybuilding?

A. Of course! Although experts have discovered that a woman can never achieve the large muscle mass and definition of a Mister Universe, she can still, with patience, dedication, and hard work, make herself look grotesque. Or she can simply have large, realistic depictions of centipedes tattooed on her face.

Q. Once I become huge and muscular, will I still be able to operate a telephone?

A. Push-button, or rotary dial?

Q. Push-button.

A. Probably.

Now that we’ve answered your commonly asked questions, let’s take stock of your current body. Take off all your clothes and stand in front of a mirror, and let’s make an objective, professional, scientific assessment. Go ahead! Don’t be shy! We can’t help you if we can’t see what we’re working with!

(PAUSE)

So! That’s your body, eh? Hahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Excuse me. I’m not (choke, gasp) laughing at you, really. I just, ummmmm, I just thought of something funny somebody said to me in 1967. Anyway, looking at your body, I would hahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha! Excuse me. I would say that you hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Whew! Put your clothes back on, okay?

Using this scientific assessment of your current bodily needs as a guide, let’s look at the various kinds of bodybuilding equipment.