"If You Do Not Come to Boot Camp..."

I watched Desperate Housewives last night, and I can't get one of its lines out of my head: "If you don't come to boot camp, then boot camp will come to you!"

What happened was this: Gabby wants to fit into a dress so she can wear it when she goes out to a fancy restaurant with Carlos. But she still needs to lose weight, and she hears that Edie is part of a fitness boot camp, which meets three mornings a week. Edie reluctantly recommends Gabby for the camp, and Gabby encounters its stern Israeli drill sergeant. "You ladies are weak!," he tells them as they do sit-ups (or whatever they were). "When I was in the Israeli army, I exercised in 105 degree weather!" Gabby gets the other ladies in trouble when she tries to vomit up air!

Gabby quits the camp and is sleeping in one morning. Suddenly, the phone rings. "Why aren't you at boot camp?," a familiar Israeli voice inquires from the other end. Gabby tells him that she quit, and the drill sergeant responds that she can't quit, since they have a contract. Gabby then goes outside, and she sees the ladies doing jumping-jacks in her yard, in their "Boot Camp" uniforms. "If you don't come to boot camp, then boot camp will come to you!," the drill sergeant says.

I was a little taken aback to see the boot camp in Gabby's very own yard. In this world, it's easy to feel like an anonymous number in a computer, as we wonder if anyone actually cares about us on a personal level. To see the drill sergeant and his boot camp outside of Gabby's house showed that they cared for her, as unwelcome as they may have been.

Gabby tries to shoo them off and goes inside her house, and the drill sergeant looks at Edie. Edie was the one who recommended Gabby, so Gabby was her responsibility, as far as the drill sergeant was concerned! Edie tells Gabby that those ladies came out to Gabby's house to support her, since they want her to fit into that dress. Edie says that Gabby is becoming just as she was when she and Carlos were rich: a selfish jerk. "At least when you were poor and pudgy, you had some humility!," Edie tells her.

Edie's words convict Gabby. She goes out to the boot camp and subjects herself to its discipline. Later in the episode, she fits into the dress. But that's not the only change that Gabby undergoes. At the beginning of the episode, Gabby was pretty rude to the woman who designed her dress. "We all gain weight," the woman said. "Let it go, like I did." "Well, with all due respect, you let it go and added cheese," Gabby retorts. At the end of the episode, however, Gabby thanks the lady for her work and gives her a hug. Gabby has resolved to be more considerate to people and their feelings.

I see from this that all sorts of people have a concept of personal growth, whether they be Christian or non-Christian. Many of us have an idea of human goodness, that we should be kind and considerate rather than mean and selfish. Many of us want to become more than we presently are, as we move towards a state of love and inner peace.

The character who intrigues me, however, is Edie, who has given Gabby these little sermons before. She tells Gabby to treat Carlos better in the fifth season, for instance. But Edie herself is far from perfect. When Gabby was married to the thuggish mayor, Edie informed him that Carlos and Gabby were seeing each other, which almost led to the loss of their lives! Edie has also been shameless in stealing other women's husbands and boyfriends. She has discipline in the sense that she takes care of her body, but she is clearly flawed in so many areas.

I guess we have an understanding of virtue, even when we are not virtuous ourselves.