The Freak Show

          I love the gym, I really do.  I know most people will say, “Oh, I hate exercising inside, all cooped up in the stinky gym.  I’m much rather be outdoors.”  Not me.  Give me a gym any day of the week.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the outdoors, love to sit outdoors, love to camp, I even love taking slow leisurely walks outdoors.  But exercising out there?  Out in the open?  Where people can see me? And what’s to entertain me out there?  Chirping birds?  Gentle breezes?  No thanks,  I’ll be on the treadmill in front of the tv if you need me.

          There are so many options at the gym, and so many weird people to watch.  It's like my own personal wildlife channel.  No matter what gym you go to there are always the same folks there.  You know these people, they’re at your gym too.  There’s weird naked person in the locker room.  You know the one, she always stands in front of her locker totally nude and checks her email on her iPhone, or brushes her hair, or files her nails, just totally nudey nudey-kins.  They just LOOOOVE to be nekkid.  Not me.  I’m  the one huddled between my open locker door and the corner, trying to take my bra off under my shirt so no one glimpses any bits of the business.
 

          And what about the beefcakes?  You know those guys.  The ones that lift a ridiculous amount of weight and then GRUNT and posture and then SLAM the weights down after their last rep.  Really beefcake?  Is all that necessary?  I feel like I’m watching a documentary on gorillas, “There he is, the big alpha male, showing off his strength to the females of the group, demonstrating his dominance to the other hairy apes.”  

            And then there are the socialites.  You know them too, they’re the ones that live and the gym, have their hair and make-up done, and never work out.  They socialize and know absolutely everyone there. “Hey, Bob!  Hey!  How’s Cheryl?  Is she over that cold yet?  And how about the grandkids, how’s little Jimmy?”  These ones are maybe my favorite, I love to watch them flit around, although it’s really fricken' annoying when they’re on the machine I want to use, just sitting there talking to whomever they see walk by.  Go home!  I’m sure your family is wondering where you are!  See what I mean?  My own personal wildlife channel.  Fascinating.

            After moving to San Diego last year I decided to join 24 Fitness which is a popular gym chain out here in California.  I always have the same routine when I go there: I drop Henry off at the Kids Club (thank GAWD for the Kids Club, free babysitting, hallelujah.) and then I get out my book and sit on the recumbent bike for about 20 minutes and read before going to do my actual work out. Okay, okay so the recumbent bike, that's the one where you sit and your legs are stretched out in front of you while you peddle, isn’t much of a work out, I get it, but it DOES give me some nice quiet time where I can read uninterrupted IN THE DAYTIME without having to be asked, “Mommy, what are we doing now?  What about now?  Well what are we doing later?  What will we do tomorrow?  Do you have any cookies?? ” and on and on and on.  When I’m on the bike?  No one asks me those questions.  No one asks me any questions, it’s great. 

             I do not come to the gym to meet people.  I come to the gym to read and maybe work out.  Maybe.  It’s my quiet time so everybody go away and leave me alone.  Thanks.  (This is actually what I told them when I signed up for the gym.  When the sales guy said, “Well you can always add Zumba classes on for an extra $25 a month, or there’s always Spin, or Roomba, or Agua Zumba Roomba Spin.  Any of those interest you?  I said, “How much would it cost for me to do none of those and for everyone to leave me alone?”  Uh, that’s free I guess.)

             So, here I am a year later and I still love the gym, and I still don’t talk to anybody, which is just the way I like it. It makes it so much easier to look like shit at the gym when you don’t know anyone there.  When you start making friends you feel the need to do things like, “shower” and “put on clean tee shirts.”  That sounds like an awful lot of work.  And I’m not at the gym to work, thanks.

             About three months ago I’m doing my thing, sitting on my bike, reading my trashy vampire series.  No not THAT trashy vampire serious with the sparkly fella, the DIRTY Vampire Series, the Black Dagger Brotherhood.  If you haven’t read it you need to do it now.  I don’t care what you’re doing now, drop it, quit your job, lock yourself in a room for a week and read all the books in the series.  Trust me, you WILL thank me.  These are the dirtiest, nastiest, most wonderful things I’ve ever read in my entire life.  Vampire Porn, it doesn’t get any better.

            So there I am in solitary bliss, peddling away, reading my vampy trash when all of a sudden I hear from the bike next to me, “Hi.”  This is like being on an airplane and realizing the person next to you wants to chit chat.

            I slowly lower my book, extra slow to emphasis my annoyance, and look over to my left to see the annoyingly beautiful girl in the 24 Hour Fitness uniform of red shirt, black pants, peddling away on the bike next to me.  “Hi, I’m Shelley, one of the trainers here and I’ve been watching you on this bike every day.  Do you really think you’re getting a good work out on this?”  Well, no, but it at least appears that I'm exercising, and that's all that really matters.

          I then of course go into my explanation of my routine, and how I’m really just using this as “mommy time” before my real work out.  

            She, being a mother herself, understands completely.  So we start talking about mom stuff, as we moms like to do, when she says, “You know, my morning client just cancelled on me so I’ve got a free half an hour.  Would you like a free work out? No pressure, I just might be able to teach you something for your future work outs and hey, and it will give me something to do so my boss doesn't think I'm slacking.  Who knows, you might actually enjoy it.”  Oh alright, I'll try anything once, let’s do it. 

           So I put my book down and we start to work out.  Funny enough, I actually DID enjoy it.  She showed me some different exercises and we chatted and laughed, like we were old pals.  Unfortunately I soon discovered that she was just duping me with her friendly smile and relatively easy work out so that I would sign up for some training lessons, which I did of course, because I’m a sucker.

         I should have known I was in trouble when I showed up for our first legit work out session.  She had this evil glint in her eye which said, “I am going to make you wish you’d never been born.  You think the recumbent bike is a good work out?  Think again.  I’m going to show you a good work out. ”  Then she literally said, “I hope you didn’t eat too much for breakfast because there is a good chance I’m going to make you puke today.”  Huh?  What? I just thought we were going to chat about our kids and lift a couple of weights, like last time.  What have I gotten myself into?  There will be puking?  Oh shit!  Help, someone, what have I done?!

 
         She enticed me with the easy fun work out last week, I had no idea I could ever experience pain like this, and most of all never expected to PAY someone to inflict pain on me like that.  This chick with the zero percent body fat took me to hell.   She worked me until I was almost dead. I just kept thinking "I hate this, I hate her, I hate this, is it over yet?  Can I quit?  What if I quit?  Can I just quit?  I hate this, I HATE HER! She can't FORCE me to do this, can she?  Make it stop, make it stop!"  Thankfully, after 40 minutes it stopped.  I literally could not walk out of the gym after she released me from her evil work-out grasp.  Judging from the satisfied smirk she had on her  face as I limped away from her I'd say she was definitely pleased with what she had done to me.  Some friend, ha!

       I literally could not make it to the locker room and had to go sit down on the bike for a cool down and to get some feeling back in my legs so I didn't pass out on my way to the showers.

         As I'm sitting there on the bike trying my best not to die I noticed people looking at me as they walked by, most of them guys.  What’s this? Are they checking me out?  I thought to myself, "Wow, this training must really be working!   Look at all these dudes looking me over.  Who knew it would show so quickly! Dammit I am looking GOOD!"

         Well, after I got the feeling back in the lower half of my body I sauntered into the locker room, okay I’ll admit with a little bit of a swagger thanks to all those stares and the quick ego boost.

          
         So I head into the locker room to change my clothes, grab my stuff and then decide to go into the bathroom for a quick pee.  After I finish up washing my hands I raise my eyes to check out my face in the mirror.  OH. MY. GAWD.  My face!  What’s happened to my face!?  It’s like there was someone else’s head on my body!  It was a mass of bright red, pink, white and, in some spots, purple blotches!  The real bonus is that the majority of the blotchiness seemed to gather right under my nose, across my upper lip.  In other words, it looks like I have a big red Magnum PI skin mustache, dammit!  What’s wrong with me!  Am I dying?  I think I’m dying.  Apparently, I just had never worked out hard enough to realize that this is what happens to my face when I get overheated.  Great, I can hardly walk, I look like a burn victim AND I want to throw up.  Why did I agree to this?

     
            The weird thing was it was only my face.  My neck and chest were normal but my face was this weird compilation of colors.  It then turned even redder after realizing those guys weren't checking me out because they thought I was hot, they were checking to make sure I wasn't going to fall over and die (or maybe they were just Tom Selleck fans).  They were keeping their eyes on me to see if they’d need to jump into action to perform CPR.

           Mortified.  Completely mortified (not to mention my personal embarrassment thinking I looked like some hot shit. Yeah, you look like Elle McPherson after one workout, moron.)

           I got my stuff, put on the sunglasses, tucked my head down and scurried out of there as fast as possible before someone else could get a gander at my freak show face.  So much for the "I'm so beautiful" ego boost.  More like, “I need some medical attention.”

           
            But even though I hate to admit it, I did learn a lot from my training sessions with Shelley and learned how to maximize my time a little better while at the gym.  I did lose some weight and Shelley and I are still friends (even though I refuse to pay her to torture me).   I continue to do the recumbent bike on occasion, but now I bump it up to level 8, just to get a little rosey glow in my cheeks….but not enough to give me a mustache.