Andrew had the day off from work, so he decided to go to the gym that morning for a decent workout. Now he was doing a workout where he would hold himself up on a device with arms like a chair, both hands gripping handles on the arms. He would lift his legs up over and over again to work his core muscles. By now he was definitely feeling some burning in his torso.

In the mind, the emotions had a difficult time keeping the body motivated enough to continue the workout. Anger, for one, was complaining about how tiring it was, and was arguing that they should abort the workout. All it would take was a push of a single button on the console, and the body would cease its activity.

"We're exhausted!" Anger whined. "Just look at our pain and discomfort levels!"

"Well you know what they say," retorted Joy. "No pain, no gain."

At this point, Joy and Fear were the only ones who were really fixated on continuing the workout.

"Come on guys!" Fear said. "I know we're all exhausted, but we gotta keep at it! We gotta stay in shape. Don't want Andrew to get all fat and mushy."

"What's the point?" Sadness sighed. "We only come here once or twice a week, and we never see any major results. Let's face it; we're fat. We're not attractive. No wonder we can't get a girlfriend." He waddled over to the couch and slumped into his seat.

"Ah come on!" Joy said. "We DO see results. Our muscles are gonna hurt tomorrow. Even the core muscles. That's a good sign, right?" Fear and Disgust both nodded in agreement. "And we're not THAT fat, right?" The other emotions were a little more unsure about that.

Joy paused for a moment after the mixed answers. "Oh… well… uh… I'm sure we'll be less fat after this! I mean besides, even just doing a crappy workout here for two hours a week… I mean… that's gotta be better than nothing, right?"

Again, mixed answers from the other emotions.

"Oh hey!" Fear exclaimed. "Has anyone been keeping track of how many reps we did this set?"

No one has.

Joy stammered a moment before speaking up. "Let's just say we're at fifteen and stop at twenty from here." Everyone was in agreement.

Finally, after what Andrew thought was thirty sets of about twenty repetitions, he got down from the machine and went over to the treadmill, the grand finale of each of his workouts.

Andrew found himself doing surprisingly well today on the treadmill. He was jogging at six miles per hour, more than his usual five or five and a half. After ten (out of thirty) minutes of jogging at this pace, fatigue began to set in.

"Ugh we're so thirsty!" Sadness complained. "Let's have a sip of water." He was about to touch the control panel to command Andrew to grab his water bottle when Logic smacked his hand away.

"I think that is a bad idea," Logic explained in his usual monotone. "Whenever we drink water in the middle of a run, we always feel more tired and find it difficult to keep running."

After hearing this, Fear got an idea. "Hey come to think of it, do you think we get cramps from the water?" He asked Logic.

"Possibly," Logic answered.

"Okay then," Fear continued. "No water."

But still, Andrew felt tired, and after insistence from Joy, Anger and Sadness, Andrew lowered the speed of the treadmill for three and a half for three minutes before returning to six. The emotions thought of this as a compromise, both physically and amongst themselves; Andrew was pacing himself.

"Oh crap," Sadness exclaimed at one point. "I just realized we forgot to pack an energy bar today."

"Aw man," Joy moaned. "We love those things!" Already his mouth was watering at the thought of those delicious cookie-dough flavored delicacies.

"Oh well," Fear said with a shrug. "Not the end of the world. We'll just remember one for next time."

Finally, after thirty minutes, the last six minutes being on speed of six, the machine slowed down to three for the five-minute cooldown. Andrew was holding on to the handholds for support. These handholds could also measure the user's pulse. The result of the reading made Fear jump.

"It's at 195 beats per minute!" He exclaimed. "That's so high! Usually we have it at 180-something! No wonder we feel pain in our chest now!" He indicated the discomfort meter. "Oh man I really hope we don't get a heart attack!"

"Can this even cause a heart attack?" Sadness asked with a shrug.

"I don't know!" Fear replied.

Anger and Disgust turned to Logic, expecting him to come up with an answer.

"Don't look at me," Logic answered, without even looking in their direction. "I only know what Andrew and the rest of you know."

But sure enough, after the cooldown, Andrew's heart rate had slowed down. His workout for the day was done. He chugged down the rest of his water that he had waited so long to drink, and left the gym, ready to go home and shower.