No one knows who wrote the humorous gem that I copied below, but 105,000 people want to make themselves look good by posting it.

Yesterday, I received a forwarded email that was sent to Rhoda who, in turn, emailed it to me — you know, the kind that starts with a dare…

If you read this without laughing out loud, there is something wrong with you. 

I abhor such emails, no matter how clever or well-intentioned. I once offended someone I hadn’t yet met in person by telling him that he didn’t know me well enough to send me corny jokes. Now, he never wants to meet me.

Often, I delete forwards before reading — the lists of made-up words, the parodies, the one-liners, the long stories.  But “A Woman’s Week at the Gym” caught my eye, because I had just published “8 Strategies for Exercising When You Don’t Want To: From Someone Who Likes to Work Out Only When She’s Paid to Do It.”

In fairness, every now and then, a worthwhile forward lands in my in-box.  Turns out, this was one of them. It is  funny, and I’ve copied it below, dutifully honoring these (poorly written) instructions:

Send this to a friend who needs to laugh. We all need a good laugh that I pass it on to cheer someone’s day.

But, I must admit, I have another motive for sharing with you now:  The piece is humorous and well-crafted, so I naturally wondered, who wrote this?

The email I received had no author’s name. And therein lies a BIG and common problem.   Needless to say, it’s personal.

In Search of the Author

I Googled the entire first line:

Dear Diary,
For my birthday this year, my husband purchased a week of personal training at the local health club.

The instant result was 105,000 hits.  I delve into four of them below, starting from the oldest to the present:

2002

The earliest entry goes back to the pre-social-media days of “message boards” and “forums.” It appears on a weight-loss thread as, “A Week at the Gym,” posted by “MelNor” from Calgary, Canada.  The copy is identical, except that it’s in honor of a 50th birthday (the version I received doesn’t specify age), and the trainer in the story is Bruce, not Christo.  MelNor does not claim to be the author, but she also doesn’t say she isn’t.

2007

A 2007 version of the story is posted by “Tygra.” The entry refers to a 40th birthday and is titled, “One Man’s Story.”  The trainer is Belinda — not Bruce or Christo, both described as “something of a Greek god.”  Belinda is “something of a Greek Goddess,” but with the same “blonde hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile” as the male trainers.  Their first meeting on Monday is similarly celebrated with “Woo Hoo!!!!!”

Did Tygra tailor the original piece, switching the protagonist’s gender and age to fit someone in particular?  Or did she find this version as is, in some obscure corner of the Internet, and simply decide to copy it?

2012

In 2012, the story is picked up by a humor site, The Spoof. Now packaged as “A Woman’s First & Only Week at the Gym,” it is posted by a man from Nottingham, England.  His screen name is “inchcock” – the origins of which I care to know nothing about.

Inchcock describes himself as a “superfluous pillock, who no one wanted, or ever would” and laments multiple woes — he’s now in rehab. He “apologises for any errors he makes in his Spoof articles,” blaming them on his many maladies.  But I can help wonder: Does he realize that his most egregious “error” is passing off writing that’s clearly not his?

This is a platform for writers, mind you. Anyone can register and upload their work, presumably original material.  The site’s Terms and Conditions cautions against posting of writing that “infringes any intellectual property rights.” Obviously, it’s an honor system.  It’s hard to believe anyone at Spoof Media checked inchcock’s submission.

2021

Finally, in search of more recent publication of the story – perhaps the version Rhoda’s friend forwarded to her – I click on an entry with a 2021 date and land on Dinar Recaps, an Iraqi business site that explains its raison d’être:

We monitor multiple chat rooms, forums and websites for the very best Iraqi Dinar information and quotes from the Dinar community. We also post other articles and posts we think our readers will enjoy reading.

A number of humor posts appear on the blog.  Like much of the material, “A Woman’s Week at the Gym” appears to be written by “Dr. Dinar,” who describes himself, in part, by what he’s not:

I’m not a Wealth Manager, Financial Advisor, CPA, Tax Attorney, RV/GCR Committee member, nor in any way connected with the Cartoon Network. I’m simply someone that chooses to believe in the power of positive thinking and on the odd chance this thing truly is real, I want to make sure I’m there at the finish line to enjoy it.

I knew I was falling down a rabbit hole when I looked up what “RV/GCR” meant and found this on Quora:

Global Currency Reset/Re Valuation. Google search on the full acronym turns up a whole lot of kooks spouting nonsense about an imminent takeover of the global currencies and resetting the valuations. Talk about secret meetings and satellites being taken offline. You can make your own assessment, but I’m not getting into it.

I click the red X and exit. The only thing that matters about Dr. Dinar is that, despite his avowed positivity, he, too, posts “One Woman’s Story” without so much as “author unknown” at the end.

Stop the Madness!

Which all goes to show you than no one is immune to plagiarism.  “A Week at the Gym” has been copied without attribution almost every year for close to twenty years — in 2003, by a firearms enthusiast, eight years later, by a cancer survivor, and in 2021, by an African hunter and a senior blogger, who goes by “Lorenberg” and changes the age to 65.

I’m not against sharing good humor — it is the best medicine — but none of these posters seem to mind being pirates.

Oh, wait! I can hear the clicking tongues all the way over here. I sound like a greying, out-of-synch print writer, who entered journalism when magazines employed fact-checkers. It’s 2021, you old bat. This is the Internet. Everyone shares.

I am that person and proud of it (though I color my grey).  And I’m sorry, it’s not okay.  When someone pretends my words are theirs, I still regard such piracy as plagiarism, not “re-posting.”

Then again, writing is now “content.”  It’s fodder for the hungry Internet machine, material for those billions of blogs, and bait for your attention. Who cares who wrote it?

I do.

Much of what I have written, even decades ago, is still somewhere in cyberspace, ripe for the picking:  book selections, articles, blogs and bits of advice.  I sometimes mine this material myself, copying and pasting sections of my old work into a new piece of writing.

Still, it’s my intellectual property.  I appreciate that it’s simple and convenient for me to retrieve. But the idea of my words being taken in and then taken on by someone else makes me feel like Howard Beale in Network: mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I get that it’s not 1976.  This is the new paradigm. Some writing is still purchased, as are some works of art, music, or drama. But much of what is written today is given away, stolen outright, or naively “borrowed.”

Such was the case with a book I “doctored” a few years ago.  One section was suspiciously academic in tone compared to the rest of the manuscript.  Turns out, it was lifted, word-for-word, from an online post.  My author (from a South American country) claimed ignorance of the law, which does not excuse the crime.

What Can We Do?

The genie is more than halfway out of the bottle, but let’s at least try to keep him/her/them from escaping.

Writers: Let’s start with us.  We need to be vigilant.  Unknowing or inadvertent theft is still stealing. Perhaps you read about an intriguing concept years ago or a clever one-liner.  You’ve used them in your own work without even thinking that you need to find — and cite — the source.  You do.

And there are online tools to keep you honest.  To find them, just search “how to check plagiarism free online.”

For example, omitting the words, “Dear Diary,” I copied the first two lines of the piece below into Plagarism Checker by Gramerly.com and got this accurate response.

Your text is free of writing issues, but we have found significant plagiarism in your text.

Readers: You need to help, too.  Here’s a way to start:

If you send the story below to a friend by via email, or post it on Facebook or Linked-In or any one of the gazillion places you “share,” please include this message:

Dear Anonymous Writer, I don’t know your name or where this piece appeared first, only that many others have since published it — without giving you credit. Please claim it as your own. Let all those pirates know they’ve stolen from you.

And while you’re at it, you can also share this piece — and tell ’em who wrote it!

***

A WOMAN’S WEEK AT THE GYM

Dear Diary,
For my birthday this year, my husband purchased a week of personal training at the local health club.  Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Christo, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.

Friends seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
____________________________________________________________________________________
MONDAY:

Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Christo waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god– with blond hair, dancing eyes, and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!!

Christo gave me a tour and showed me the machines… I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!

Christo was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week!!
________________________________
TUESDAY:

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Christo made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile.

His rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT! It’s a whole new life for me.
_______________________________
WEDNESDAY:

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.

Christo was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members.. His voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.

My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Christo put me on the stair monster. Why would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Christo told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other crap too.
_______________________________
THURSDAY:

Butt hole was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late– it took me that long to tie my shoes.

He took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent some skinny witch to find me.

Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine– which I sank.
_________________________________
FRIDAY:

I hate that jackass Christo more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world.

Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic, little aerobic instructor. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it.

Christo wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the darn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich.

The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?
________________________________
SATURDAY:

Satan left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing his voice made me want to smash the machine with my planner; however, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel..
________________________________
SUNDAY:

I’m having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my husband will choose a gift for me that is fun– like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

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