Gyms and Kids just dont mix:

The BBQ Pit
1

So I goes to the gym tonight; I knew things were going down hill, and depsite all efforts to give the new management to benefit of the doubt despite hearing the words “Family Friendly” WAAAAAAAAAAY too often lately, this is what I was treated to tonight…

  1. Wait 3 minutes plus while dud gets hockey brats and gear out of mini-moo van in the middle of the main drag: After the glare, I get that clueless “WHAT?!” look I love so…

  2. 2 Minutes later, 1 Lady backing out of space, floors it forwards, (To avoid being plowed by clueless teen sprog in car backing out, then flies off doing 30mph+ in a tight parking lot), I have to give her the high beams to convince her it’s safe to go…

Hint: Not even in the Building yet:

Oh Good news: It’s Swimming Lessons night (It is EVERY Night) yay.

  1. Look into pool area as I approach entrance, Clueless Soccer moo wannabes talking, ignoring brats, 1 staffer supervising thirty plus brats in pool, another thirty plus wandering the deck aimlessly without ANY supervision, age group is on average 4-7.

THIS IS NOT THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.

I Get Inside:

  1. Oh my buhjeebus!

The stretching area that has been steadily shrinking in favor of the new kidie walkway out of pool is now officially defunct, what little room is left is now subjected to fat homely people and kiddies in bare pool-bacteria ridden feet as the main path, how sanitary.

The Brats are literally everywhere and have over-fucking-run the place. They are playing in the lobby, and in and around the stairwell going down to the locker room, they’re playing and underfoot in the locker room, and if you can find one parent, you’re one up on me…

  1. Get back upstairs, need to use facilities. Can’t, apparently the bathroom is now a kiddie changing room, but it gets better. Last I knew, this was the men’s room. In the second stall, behind locked door, with little boy, Mommy is changing junior. Just to prove I am indeed evil, I wee anyway.

Sorry Mum, YOU’RE IN MY HOUSE!

To get to the new kiddie changing room, I had to take the long way around, as the new managers have compacted the nautilus area, the walkway to the can is smaller and blocked by mega stroller, 2 kiddies and a vacantly staring mommy. Can you yet feel my elation in mooland?

Get out from horrifying the men’s room intruder and make note of more brats vacantly the pool and trampling bacteria layer 4002 into the sad carcass that once was the stretching area. I turn to left, and see three brats playing horsey on the nautilus equipment, so we transcend annoyance into, now kiddies are risk of hurting themselves, and you guessed it, Mummy and dud are nowhere in sight and the staffer not more tha three feet away is too busy making new membership sale to care.

OH

MY

GOD…

Is this what family friendly means? This will be the end of western Civilization as we know it, the hell with terrorists, this will do it.

I suffered through the workout on principle, and can’t get back until thursday. If then, I see anything even close to tonight’s performance, I will (Fuck any spinal), just simply go ballistic on the staffer I can reduce to tears.

Then I am going down the street and taking the competition’s nickel tour.
After being a member at this place for 10 years and a loyal one, this is how die hard members are now treated. we are now those who don’t count and the family friendly forces have destroyed anything resembling a gym on the premises.

Good fucking riddance.

2

Can we say, Lawsuit City???

:eek:

3

Oh, great. Then we get Nautilus machines with no moving parts or heavy weights. 'Cuase it’s never the parents fault they let their kids run around unchecked, it’s everyone else’s fault for not making every square inch of the planet child-proof.

4

Oh, I agree it’s the parents’ fault. I’m just saying that you KNOW one of those kids is going to get hurt and that Mommy and Daddy will be screaming about sueing.

5

Right. And the fallout is as I stated above.

6

Man, this is why I hate families. Not the mere existence of families, but rather the way that parents with small children seem to think that the world is in place solely for them and others like them and that the desires of single people are irrelevant.

The weight room and the area with treadmills and cycles needs to be absolutely kid-free, for both the kids safety and for the rest of our convenience, so we don’t have to be constantly looking out for other people’s little sugar-high brats who might be about to run right into the end of the weight machine while I’m using it. Ain’t my responsibility, and it ain’t safe. I realize that parents with small children can’t always leave them at home when they go to the gym, but they need to be controlled. Kids at gyms should be locked into kid rooms with various things to occupy them.

That said, the pool thing is really just a business decision that has to be expected. Swimming lessons for kids are pretty popular. If the gym sees a better profit potential in having supervised lessons at the gym, so the parents can get their workout and the kids lessons both out of the way at once, well then the gym is free to pursue that. And they’re free to face the consequence that alienating their non-“family oriented” customers is a likely result unless they take pains not to allow the brats to overrun the building.

7

You just poked me in the eye with one of the bristles from that incredibly wide brush you’re whomping around. Please be more careful in the future.

8

They’re called “chairs.”

9

Most pools are chlorinated to kill germs. Just FYI.

10

I had a kid bothering me one time while I was trying to work out, so I calmly sat him down on the floor, with his legs out straight in front of him, then set two 75 lb hex dumbbells over his ankles so he couldn’t move. Oh, he bitched for a bit, but eventually got tired and shut up 'til I finished. His mother was pissed, but I think I coulda kicked her ass too, if I had to.

Thank gawd I have my own gym, and don’t have to deal with other people’s families…

11

OMG that is too funny!!

12

here in Charlotte a few months ago, the YMCA opened up a new indoor water park at one of their facilities. In the same paper, they ran a story about a new kind of bacteria that can contaminate pools from feces…it said chlorine can’t kill the bacteria and it only takes a small amount of feces to conaminate a very large pool. I don’t have a link, this was a few months ago.