Baby Tigers, Injured Hawks, and Puppies. Oh my!

Today was a total fail at the gym. The intent was to go get my Hatha yoga on, but alas, this wasn't meant to be. I arrived a full ten minutes early at Lifetime Fitness to find that the class was full. Sad. Day. So, I sat down at my favorite exercise machine and selected a program that I thought would suit my needs. Typically, I'm a multi-tasker and I like to get several things done at once, as mentioned in, "Yoga Frame of Mind."  This time, my touch-screen wasn't working, captions weren't available on the channel I selected, and my phone died just as I was about to load up my tunes on Slacker Radio.  So, what's a girl to do?

I pedaled, and pedaled and pedaled.  After about twenty minutes, I realized the reason I had yet to break a sweat.  I was on level two.  Level two is about as pathetic as it gets.  The only thing more pathetic is level one.  So, I kicked it up a couple of notches, as Emeril Lagasse would say, and got ready to, "go hard" at level three.

I am a huge fan of Ms. J from America's Next Top Model, so I loved it when he made an appearance on Real Housewives of Atlanta.  Watching him tell it like it is really helped me unwind, relax and sink into my 40 minute pre-programmed workout.  When my BFF showed up at the gym with my daughter and her little munchkin, we walked them to the daycare center and, after many trips to the women's locker room to retrieve water bottles, ID cards and headphones, we headed upstairs to the bikes again where I found out some truly shocking information.

Apparently, some individual in a brown and white van tried to abscond two children from my daughter's school!  BFF and I talked about it as we cycled vigorously at level three and I was so sad to hear that my fears are founded.  The world is, sadly, every bit as unpredictable and scary as I didn't realize it was when I was my daughter's age.  BFF works in social work, so she's totally dialed in to things potential abductors might say to small kids.  When she told me to have the conversation with my little one about not getting into a van with someone who might claim to have a baby tiger, injured hawk or puppy inside, I burst into nervous laughter.  WTH?!!?  I am going to have to be thinking outside the box and hyper vigilant if I want to protect my little ones from the big, scary world out there.

Then again, maybe a simple, "Don't talk to strangers," will suffice.

Would anyone really have this in the back of their van?  I don't think so...