*Disclaimer: If you or anyone close to you happens to be a supporter of that activity known as dance aerobics, or happens to like mornings in general, and/or possess little or no sense of humor, you would do best to read no further. If you choose to read further, you do so at your own risk. Consider yourself warned.

The question of the century is: why the heck do dance exercise aerobic fanatics like to blast really bad music really, really loud? You're probably thinking that this whole issue is moot, irrelevant, and not worth spending time pondering. I disagree.

This semester for school, I decided to try something new, and have taken up a Yoga class. That's right, I'm learning how to contort myself into all sorts of odd postures, stretching to and fro, breathing deeply, and performing all varieties of moves, all involving the names of animals ranging from mammals to reptiles to arthropods. It's pretty cool.

But that's not the point. The point is that my Yoga class has a special Yoga classroom in the gym. It's a nice little spot, actually. And even the atmosphere is comforting. That is, until the dance aerobic crazies decide to start their morning routine. It's 8 o'clock in the morning, and we who are not crazy morning people are relaxing and doing our Yoga thing.

But ambience is not important to those dance aerobics-ers. In the midst of our Shavasna (I have no idea how to spell that), where we're lying flat on our backs and working to become the epitome of calm, relieved of all stress, obnoxious beats suddenly emanate from the room next door. I'm talking hard-core pop beats (if there is such a thing) that invade your brain and then never leave.

And of course you hear the instructor, equipped with a headset microphone (as all hip aerobics instructors are), shouting out commands over the muzak. "Okay go, on one, two, three...and four..."

What gets me wondering is why exactly the music has to be so fucking loud. As if loud music really gets the blood flowing in any place but your poor ears, which are forced to work overtime to protect your precious hearing. And don't even try to tell me that those overemphasized beats actually help everyone get all the moves in perfect rhythm. It never works that way.

Plus, I mean really, the room is clearly small enough that psychotically loud music is obviously unnecessary. Screw giant hanging speakers with built-in subwoofers. A simple boom box should do nicely. It's 8 in the morning, who has that much energy, anyway? You're in college for crying out loud.

Come on dance aerobics-ers, get lazy already.