Bob squeezed into his seat at the Liars’ Table at the Blue Moon Diner and announced that this year he was sticking to his New Year’s resolution. He had joined a gym.

This was a new one. Most years he resolved the normal things: to lose weight, or quit drinking, or quit smoking, or quit betting on college football, or quit cheating on his taxes, or finally clean out his garage and sell all the stuff on eBay. And they never happened. We were all kind of stunned that he had gone so far as to join a gym.

We all agreed it was a good idea, because exercise keeps you young.

“Yes,” said Jackson. “Sixty is the new 59. I’m kind of sorry I had to quit going.” Jackson is the only one of our group who belongs to a gym and exercises regularly. The rest of us are just average slobs.

“You quit?” Bob asked. “But you were the reason I joined. You kept saying how it had helped your back and how you’d lost weight and how well you felt, and now you tell me you’ve quit! What is going on?”

“It was a lot of things,” Jackson said. “But mainly it was all the babies.”

“Just because some people act childish doesn’t mean you should quit. You love that place,” Bob said.

“I mean real babies, of the very small child type. I got out of the pool one day and was relaxing in the whirlpool spa when a group of women came in with babies in diapers and took them into the pool. It spoiled the whole thing for me.”

“What’s the matter with babies learning to swim? I hear they like it,” Bob said.

“Did you read that in one of your men’s magazines?” someone asked.

“I’ve seen that,” Jackson said, “and maybe it is good for them, but not for me. I don’t want to swim in a diaper bucket.”