The TharpSter TreadMill is a 35 pound wonder I picked up a few years ago as a Christmas gift for the entire family.  It sports a compact and amazingly adjustable design which provides for easy and convenient storage when not in use.  Make no mistake though.  The TharpSter TreadMill is no ordinary treadmill.

Along with its unique design, my treadmill sports the ability to provide resistance training for the arms.  You can use the left, the right, or both.  Take your pick.  In addition, this little beauty boasts a wide variety of settings to provide me with a multitude of speeds ranging from a leisurely stroll to the velocity commonly found among those who run in a full blown panic from an axe murderer somewhere in the uncharted woods up at Crystal Lake.  With the exception of a tagging device (not quite LoJack), there’s no electronic gadgetry included to provide me with marching tunes, or the assorted statistics to admonish me that the pace of my full blown panic is not fast enough to save the fleshy void atop my head from certain introduction of the previously noted axe murderer’s weapon of choice.

No major worry though.  My Sony Ericsson W580i is equipped with a pedometer and enough memory to generate the ear candy to take my mind off of the mere fact that the effort I’m exerting far outweighs the sedentary, lethargic lifestyle I would prefer to practice at the current moment.  Seriously, now.  Couldn’t the likes of Jason Voorhees just chill on the couch and drink a citrus flavored Diet Lipton Green Tea and watch the latest faux celebrity version of the Bachelor/Bachelorette on VH1 instead of finding new ways to kill teenagers who are still basking in the glow from the after effects of the fantasy driven booty call in the forest?

I digress.

There are a few drawbacks to my treadmill.  First of all, it has no ability to serve as a coat rack or any other type of stand I could store my clothes on.  It also has an alarm which not only beckons me to get my fat, sleepy ass out of bed at five in the morning when even the roosters are still hung over and groggy from the previous evening’s cockfights, it makes demands that I get up immediately under the threat of certain consequences I don’t really want to consider.  Even worse is the fact that treadmill is not equipped with the hardware to change the wake up call to a later time.

There are a few other unique features the TharpSter TreadMill possesses which are uncommon to most treadmills.  First and foremost, don’t plug it in.  This thing is manual, and if you plug it in it won’t go.  You have to make sure it’s properly serviced and well lubricated on a daily basis.  When it’s active, it makes a chinka, chinka, chinka sound.  That sound is really no big deal as long as you use the volume button on your mp3 player accordingly.

Sometimes when you’re using the arm resistance exercise, the device becomes unpredictable and erratic.  If you aren’t paying attention, you’re likely to get your arm jerked out of your socket, all at the same time providing a whole new dynamic to your heroic efforts of running in a full blown panic.  Even without the intermittent jerks and tugs, calices are sure to form on the hands after prolonged use.

The one thing my treadmill provides that no piece of machinery will ever give is unconditional love and dedication.  It misses you when you’re gone, and it’s glad when you’re there.  If you have problems with squirrels, frogs, geckos, birds, flies, bedding plants, or garden hoses interfering with the general ambiance of your back yard, the TharpSter TreadMill will dispense with the offending item and banish it to locations unknown.

Some people become so attached to their treadmills that they actually name them.

We call ours Faith.