Thursday, January 06, 2011

Being Healthy is Rotting Away My Brain

I've been avoiding writing this next post because I don't want to admit to you all that I broke down and joined a gym (I've been avoiding writing any posts at all because my parents bought me an iPad for Christmas and I cannot. Put. It. Down.). After all my anti-gym sentiment about how if people were really motivated they could exercise at home for free, and that gym people are obsessive weirdos who can't talk about anything except how many reps they did when they blasted their pecs that morning, and how spin class sounds to me like a real olfactory horror show O my brothers, it seemed like blogging "Omigod you guys, I totes joined the gym wheeee!" was an invitation for ridicule. The truth is, I still feel basically the same about the gym, but I joined one anyway because I was afraid I'd fall off the fitness wagon if I stopped my walking regimen and I'm way too much of a pussy to go outside during a Chicago winter for anything other than what is strictly necessary for basic survival. So I joined the gym in the building where I work, which is handy as I don't have to go outside even to get there and I don't have to motivate myself to get up and go to the gym in the wee hours of the morning or convince myself to do it at the end of the day - I can just swing by there at lunch when I would have just been sitting at my desk trolling Facebook anyway.

I remembered immediately one of the biggest reasons why I hate the gym: women. The gym has handy little tvs on every piece of equipment so as to distract you from the fact that you're doing something you absolutely hate. Because of this I can tell you with a high degree of accuracy the gender of the person who was on the machine before me. Sportscenter or the financial news? Dude (or BrownsFan, who throws off my calculations because she is glorious). One Life to Live or anything involving a Kardashian? Fuckin broad.

The locker room is even worse, because in the locker room the sound is on and it's loud enough for me to hear it in the shower so it can't be ignored. I've been subjected to Tabatha's Salon Takeover, staring a bitchy Australian woman who bosses around salon owners and their stylists with a level of assholeness that approaches Gordon Ramsey; Judge Joe Brown and his band of mouth breathing idiots who have the nerve to be surprised when the losers they date turn out to be losers and steal from them; a number of different soap operas that have been running since the dawn of time with the same twelve characters having the same set of problems that aren't actual problems ("But Danny's threatening to take the kids away because I'm having an affair!" It never occurs to them to just *stop* having an affair); some weird cooking with celebrities show where Matthew McConaughey taught me how to make a salad; and perhaps most disturbingly, Celebrity Plastic Surgery: Did They or Didn't They? which was too appalling for me to even describe. I know, I know, that this is NOT what is being watched in the men's locker room. They've got ESPN on in there, I can feel it, and it makes me want to go around and ask all the guys in the place if any of them would mind if I switched locker rooms. Even when BrownsFan managed to get Sportcenter on in our locker room, by the time I got done with my workout it had reverted back to Fashion Emergency! or something equally vapid. The only good thing about it is that it gets me in and out of the shower and back at my desk at an amazing speed.

WOMEN OF THE GYM: I have nothing profound to say here. Just please, please STOP.

No comments: