Guest Blogger!

There is a woman who always shows up to my hour-long water aerobics class about 20 minutes late.

She gets in the pool, finds one of her two friends who are in the class, and proceeds to talk. And talk. And talk. The whole time she is standing in one place and maybe moving her feet or arms a little. But she never stops talking.

I am fascinated by her. For one, I can't figure out how anyone talks for 40 minutes non-stop. For another, she is in pretty good shape. How that happens, I don't know. Maybe she never has time to eat because she talks so much.

******

Suebob

non-gym people

"Have you lost weight?" One of my coworkers asked recently. "Well I've been going to the gym..." I replied, not wanting to dissect the semantics of the question, as I have not lost weight but just made the same weight look better. I still know where the weight is.

"Oh, the gym. Never cared for that." Scornfully, she walks away.

Why is she mad at me for going to the gym? Was it a compliment before she found out that I don't magically make fat disappear? And I can tell she doesn't like the gym because she gets winded waiting for the elevator.

Ok, so there's my proof that as snarky as we may be here, there are those on the other side that are very bitter about it.

Live nude girl

I think of a young lady at my gym as "my anorexic girl." I have talked to her, I have talked to my mom about her, I see her frequently. I am concerned about her health. I've even asked the gym people if they have a defibrillator, because this girl's hear is going to short out. It's sad. But aside from being anorectic, she is also very, very strange. My mom told me this story recently.

She was at the gym and saw my anorexic girl in the locker room. "Was she doing her stretches?" I interrupted. Yes, she was. She was topless and stretching at the mirrors in the locker room. There are two areas she frequents -- one just has a mirror and a counter with blowdryers and such on it. The other has sinks as well. She stretches with one foot up on the counter. Now, I'm not crazy about people's bare feet being on counters I might touch to begin with, but to make this all even less appealing, she does it topless. Barefoot, topless, anorexic, and stretching on a public counter. So mom mentions that she thinks my anorexic girl also has fake boobs. "They looked like someone had glued softballs to the front of her!" I actually saw her again tonight and I'm not 100% sure I agree. She doesn't have ANY body fat, so I don't know how she still has boobs, but they're more of a tennis ball anyway. Well, apparently, she was in there the whole time my mom was doing her own stretches (on the mats on the floor, where all the normal people do them), and had been working out before during the whole time my mom worked out in the gym proper. Mom mentions the topless stretching, then says she went around the corner to her locker and was out of sight for maybe a minute at most. When she went to leave, the woman was still at the counter, still doing her stretches, and now had a shirt on... but had TAKEN HER SHORTS OFF. Yes, she was now naked from the waist down stretching barefoot on a public counter. Will the madness ever cease?

treadmills are hard

A girl walks up to the treadmill right in front of my elliptical. She presses a few buttons, stares blankly, and moves to the adjacent treadmill where she does the same thing. She is exuding an air of "how do I make this work?" I watch as she does the exact same thing to 2 other treadmills (luckily it was a slow day). Not one of them has gotten her to actually exercise yet. I'm not sure if she just can't figure out the many buttons (i.e. "enter age / weight", "select workout", "quick start") or if she just wants to be able to say she tried using the treadmills but they didn't work.

She could've asked the staff, but she was satisfied to just give up. After her failed attempts at the treadmills, she retired to a bike where she casually pedaled and read her book for about an hour.

I just don't understand why these people join a gym.

the gym as public poop-house

I've mentioned this before, but my gym locker room / bathroom is small. Small. There are 2 showers, 2 toilet stalls, 2 sinks, and the rest of the wall space is lockers. So why do people find it necessary to ... dispose of their solid waste here? I understand that sometimes it just can't wait, but yesterday was the second time my poor nose was witness to poop incident. Unlike last time, however, this was solid poop. The stink hit my nose as soon as I walked in. It almost knocked me down. I could hear her straining. There were a few courtesy flushes. They did not help. Someone else walked in too pee (!) and I saw her nose crinkle the way I know my own did. But she could tell that I was not the Stinky Bitch.* The stall girl finished up, but did not leave until (I'm assuming) everyone else - me - was out of the room. Good for her, but I was a little light-headed from holding my breath while I changed back into Street des.


ps - the basket of goodies on the counter includes things girls might need, like shampoo, shower gel, tampons, baby powder, spray deodorant, lotion, and - get this - air deodorizer. Please make use of these things.



* I'm not saying the girl in the stall was also bitchy, that's just what I say when someone (including myself) offends my nose.

too hot (sing it!)

Now that this thing called the "sun" has re-appeared, I notice that my gym needs an AC system, quick. In the afternoons, when I'm there, the sun shines directly into the corner 2 window / walls, directly onto the cardio equipment. Now I know why one of the windows is frosted. But it still sucks to do cardio. Or weights.

Lucky for me, the other people that work out there realize the importance of deodorant and wiping down the equipment.