Gym People

Today's Sacramento Bee article, http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/560474.html , must have stolen my idea for a blog that I mentioned in my first blog a couple days ago! I guess I have more readers than I thought!? I go to the gym every day. I go to one of three gyms that are a part of the same system of about 10 gyms total. They nice gyms, in nice neighborhoods with a nice upscale crowd for the most part. The one gym, the Club, has a few annoying lower class people; one of which I believe pays off the door guy rather than pay full membership (more on that another time). A few stragglers are at these gyms but mostly professional people. Anyway, just about every day I see things at the gym that shock me. Be it the guy who blows his nose in the towel and then wipes down the exercise equipment with that same towel when he is done working out or the guy that wear clothes that are too tight or the woman who insists on wearing tons of make-up to the gym at 5:00 AM. Oh ya, I am part of the early bird crew... 5:00 AM when they open the doors!

Let's start with how the early bird crew operates at my main gym, which we will call The Del. It opens at 5:00, on the dot and not a minute earlier due to the Door Nazi. She used to be morning employee but now is in management so comes in later. When she was the door person she would not open a second before 5:00 and often it was at least 5:01 by the time she opened. Now that she is in management she checks the sign in times, later in the day when she arrives, to make sure the morning employee did not let people in early... not even a minute. They claim it's because of insurance reasons... I find that hard to believe.

The line up begins about 4:55. It's a casual line up and in fact is really just a mass of people standing near the door. Though no official "line" everybody knows who they follow in... except one lady, Line Cutter. I am not sure what her problem is but she arrives about 4:58 and walks up to the front or half way to the front of the pack and plants herself there. Nobody says anything but I will assume I am not the only person that notices. Line Cutter is in her 50's and it's hard to imagine a person more in their own world. I have not seen Line Cutter lately so maybe she is sleeping in!?

So once the Door Nazi, or her underling, lets us in we scamper through the locker and into the gym. There are the regular people, Obvious State Worker, Overweight Guy, Retirees who should be sleeping-in, myself (just a regular white guy) and a variety of others. Overweight Guy is interesting. He works out EVERY day but still has this big gut. Why? I just can't figure him out. Maybe I will know in 20 years? Also, what's up with the retirees who show up at 5:00 AM every day? Why don't they sleep in? I know I would if I was retired.

We all go in, do our thing, keep to ourselves other than a few hellos, and get our workout done. Then there is Old Yeller! I first noticed her a few years ago as she would run on the treadmill and grunt, loudly, and different times. She is in her 40's, a little chubby but apparently in good shape as she works out a lot. I think she suffers from Turrets Syndrome as her grunts can be quite loud and without any consistent pattern. I will give her a pass on the grunting as maybe she can't help it but what about the loud talking? How f'ing annoying! The 5:00 AM crew is not there to socialize so when she strikes up a conversation, even though you are reading a book, it is annoying. However, it's even more annoying if you are across the gym and are forced to hear her conversation. BE QUIET. Treat this place like a library! Did you notice they don't turn on the music until 7:00 AM!? So she rambles on and on and on about her rich father-in-law, how successful she is at her job (very hard to believe), and on she goes....

Her lack of a sense of boundaries is my biggest problem with her. There is a towel cart stationed in the gym with drawers full of... towels (shocking!) and on the top of the cart is a basket with peddle straps for the bikes as some people take the peddle straps off. Which reminds me, HEY ASSHOLES STOP TAKING THE PEDDLE STRAPS OFF! Anyway, Old Yeller piles her personal belongings, towel, car keys, extra set of shoes, etc... ON TOP of the towel cart blocking the peddle straps. Lady, do you have no sense of public space v. private space? That is NOT your personal space. We have LOCKERS for your personal stuff why don't you use it. Do you really think you are that important that it's ok to force us to sift through your stuff to get to the peddle straps? Maybe I should really change your name to CLUELESS!?

Next post will be about annoying rich (I assume?) guy who drives the fancy Benzo. I believe he is a lobbyist and he is quite full of himself. We will deal with him in the future....

peace