Reader Contribution.

Here's a reader contribution from Jessie. I was horrified for her when I read this.

I havent been to the gym in quite some time, as I just let my membership expire after the terrible experiences that I encountered while going there. As much as I attribute my excellent labor and recovery with my second son to all of those laps around the pool, Ive just been too scared to go back.

The first thing that I noticed when I first joined was this couple who never left the spa. They were in their 40's, they were neither fit nor fat, but they never actually worked out. As the spa at my gym was somewhat of a social gathering, they would often get into conversations with whoever was in there with them that day. Fairly normal, maybe they were just "spa rats," right? I can respect that, but there was something odd about this pair. You see, every few minutes, mid conversation, the man would turn to the woman and sing to her. Not just a few bars, but an entire song...slowly. And as he would sing to her, she would gaaaaaaze lovingly into his eyes. Right when people were having a relevant conversation!
"Yeah, gas prices are really high, someone ought to do something about it."
"Oh yes, I agree. My first, my last, my everythiiiiing!"

And it wasnt that he was bad, its that he wasnt very good. It would happen three or four times durring the hour that I would spend in the pool, and everyone in the spa just looked at each other and wait until he was finished to continue speaking. It wasnt that scary, but it was odd.

The time that I got scared was when I was sharing a lane with some man. I was six or seven months pregnant at the time, and he noticed it. He stopped me when I was using my kick board and asked me if I knew what the baby was, and all of that seemingly normal stuff. Then he asked me if I was going to deliver vaginally. I told him to mind his own business and I swam to another lane, but it didnt stop him!

"I was just wondering, because I learned the other day that sometimes women deliver vaginally with their legs up in stirrups," and he proceeded to lean back into the water and put his legs up in imaginary stirrups.

"But sometimes," he continued, "ladies will push the baby out doggy style."

So then he pushed his imaginary baby out doggy style, holding onto the side of the pool for leverage. I decided to cut it short that day and I went into the locker room, only to remember that my friend had my locker key, and she was out in the gigantic gym somewhere, so I had to sit and wait for her to finish working out, all wet in my bathing suit.

After that, I decided to start going to the gym at night. That couple in the spa was still there, they were always there, but on this particular night that I went, some huge family used up all of their guest passes to get 20 rude teenagers into the pool for a party. Annoyed by them swimming across my lane to play Marco Polo, I went inside to ride the bikes. While I was in there, some woman next to me was on her cell phone talking about kegal (sp) exercises for a good 20 minutes, so I just decided to go. When I got to my car, a gym employee was sweeping up shattered glass, as all three of the cars that I was parked by (including the one in front of me in the next row) had their windows broken. I decided that my gym was in a really bad area, so I didnt renew my membership.

There arent any big gyms around here, so I tried to join up with a small one, and the lady would either stare at me, or get on the machines and try to go faster and do better than me. I guess Im not a gym person.