I elevator down with Clara in her stiff white lab coat for the next research study on the agenda. We floor-hop for a minute, letting others on and off, before deboarding to head to the same room that the sweetener study was held in. Mostly the room hadn’t changed still housing the same little bed, same cameras on the walls, same desk with the same laptop computer on it, except this time there was a large black treadmill in one corner. I had to stop myself from scanning the paneled ceiling for a water bottle drip within the confines of the human hamster cage.

I sat down at the desk and was given a two page questionnaire to help pinpoint different levels of emotion I might be feeling at the moment. Before shutting the door behind her as she exited the room Clara placed the same little call button as last time to my right so I could notify her when I was finished. Not being particularly angry, depressed, excited or overly emotional in any other way I flew through the paperwork and started my stint on the laptop. This study also involved the repeated pressing of buttons in order to earn rewards but the incentive was different this time. This one was called the “work for exercise” study.

I couldn’t help thinking in the back of my mind that it was silly for a person to be willing to sit and push a button for upwards of 40 minutes, switching hands until both wrists hurt, just for a maximum of 30 minutes of slow walking on a treadmill. I understand how this would be a totally fine reward for a person who has an exercise addiction, which many people with eating disorders do have. However, I couldn’t keep my mind from ruminating on the absurdity of that reward anyways. If we didn’t have fresh air time that we were able to walk around during, and had to remain sedentary on a constant basis like I did at Remuda, that tiny bit of movement may have been seen as much more desirable. Heck, who knows, I may have even worked the full 40 minutes for the half hour trade.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who saw the treadmill time as something not worth working for. They had added in a second reward of cash that I could press the button to earn. The maximum of that was $30 and it was received at the end of the session. As the exercise minutes accumulated 3 at a time, the money built $3 at a time as well and at the end of each earning I could decide which of those two things I wanted to work for during the next session.

I picked the cash. Of course I picked to work for the cash. If the treadmill had been the only reward the test to see how hard I would work for it’s company would have been over before I laid one finger on the button. I clicked away for about 12 minutes, switching hands, switching fingers, and eventually stopped when my wrists started getting sore. My need to do artwork pain-free outweighed my desire for more money. If I had kept it up, going for the whole $30, I doubt I would have been able to draw anything for the rest of the afternoon, or even write this entry now, without feeling the repercussions.

In the end I wound up with $15 which i figured would buy me about 3 weeks worth of morning coffee from the upstairs cafe. All in all it was a satisfying experience. I filled out one more short questionnaire about my moods and anxiety levels at that particular moment, rang my little buzzer, and sat back to wait for Clara’s escort to go upstairs again.