OK, just got back from my first day at the gym. If their goal was to “get my heart rate lowered,” they did admirably—I’m pretty sure my heart stopped entirely at least twice.
I got into my gym togs—big ol’ T-shirt, linen deck pants—and met my trainer, an Amazonian womam with no discernable sense of humor. She took my important information, after which she seemed especially anxious to get my “emergency contact number.”
She started me out on the kayak machine, which is sort of a rowing machine, only like you’re in a bad storm and have to yell “mizzen the main mast! all hands on deck!” I fell off twice. Then to the back room, where she introduced me to several machines I will grow you know and heartily dislike for however long I last: The Salaam Machine (you get down on your knees, hang onto some pulleys, and basically salaam); the Non-Storm Rowing Machine (much easier; I only fell off once); the Sally Rand Bubble (you lean against the wall and do knee-bends). I’m supposed to come three times a week and do all those machines until I collapse and have to be scraped off the floor like gum.
Oh, and yes, my whippet-thin boss did see me starkers headed for the shower . . .
It sounds very scary. Especially the rowing machine. If I’m not out to see, damnit, I’m not rowing!
My husband, Fidel, has been working out for about 8 months and is trying to get me to do it. I’m thinking some sit ups, some girl push-ups, and maybe some bendy stuff. That’s it. I’m too scared.
Drag on the boss seeing you nekkid. Was she nekkid too?
Of course not. She was fully dressed and glaring at me through a lorgnette. How too shy-making!
I kept up a steady stream of (increasingly breathless) wisecracks, by the way, and my trainer never smiled once. It was like playing a split week on Easter Island.
Humorless people. Where the fuck do they grow them? I even find funerals funny, to an extent. I’d think a bunch of middle-aged women about to drop from some sort of arrythmia would be mildly amusing at least!
Out of the 4 trainers i’ve had over the last two years only my current one has a sense of humour.
I mentioned this to him and he agreed completely.
He said that the loss of humour is an unfortunate side effect of the pain-threshold removal operation they are all meant to have in order to recieve their trainer certification.
Not being prepared to pay that price, he’d bribed his way out of having the op.
He added that he now lives in fear of being caught by the trainer-police.
No, no! The gym is not for socializing! If you so much as smile and nod at someone you know, you get Very Dark Looks indeed. You have never seen such a bunch of po-faced, serious people.
Maybe you could bring your own laugh track with you. Tell a joke and hit the button. Bwahahahahaha! Tell a one-liner, hit the button. That’ll loosen up the Cigar Store Indians!
dear Eve, I wish you could come to our gym. There’s lots of fun gals who are members; we laugh and cut up all the time we’re there. I love it sooo much that I spend almost 2 hours there for four days of the week.
Hrm. I’ll trade ya… I’m a huge apelike creature, and I work out/play racquetball in the student physical activity center here at UGA. Nothing to make one feel more self- conscious than being surrounded by 2,000 college students in prime physical shape…
I have, every gym I’ve been to is like that. Just wait til you run into one of the guys who Knows How To Do Everything Way Better Than You and spends 30 minutes lecturing you on how you’re Doing It All Wrong.