Was at the gym today using an elliptical trainer. These machines, like treadmills, have sensor bars on the handles, meant to detect your heart rate and chart your progress.

Well, doesn’t work for me.

I used to work out at California Fitness. I tried all the different machines but none could ever detect my heart rate. I don’t think I was holding the handles wrong. How many ways are there to hold a handle, anyway? I’d always get “Unable to detect heart rate. Switching to manual mode”.

Very, very annoying.

Today, I went to a Singapore Sports Council gym. Very cheap, pay per use is $2.50, so much more affordable than paying $70 a month for upmarket gyms and going only once or twice a week.

Anyway, the elliptical trainer at the SSC gym couldn’t detect my heart rate, either.

Maybe I don’t have a heart or it’s broken, or something. If you put your hand on my chest, you can’t feel my heartbeat. You have to wait till I do 20 minutes of cardio and then you might be able to feel a faint thumping, kinda like a butterfly wings thumping against a padded glass jar.

Wen called me heartless.

But that’s nonsense because I am possibly the most sympathetic, emotional person you could ever know.

I was playing a game on the Wii called Trauma Center, in which you play a surgeon cutting up patients and treating their diseases. In between operations, you follow the storylines of your patients. There was this story that was so touching that I started crying while playing.

It’s a great game.

So, I know my heart is there. But why can’t the stupid machines find it?