I know I harp on this way too much, but I for some reason the message just isn’t getting out. Towels. We rounded the corner into the women’s locker room today to be greeted by a sight straight from a horror movie. Let me make this clear – EVERYONE should use a LARGE towel when disrobing in public, especially if you resemble dried fruit. I’m accompanied today by Daughters #1 & #2, my full complement of offspring and we hastily stash our jackets and purses, diverting our eyes from the tableau of terror. I think we set a land speed record exiting the locker room.
There’s a bumble bee on the Treadmill. This one is about five-five and in my lingo, a C-30. She’s wearing a black tank top and yellow cargo style pants made from a material resembling a parachute. The pockets have black satin ribbons hanging from the closures. I’m fascinated as she angles the machine up to ‘climb a mountain’ mode and moving at the speed of a aged snail she begins a series of sideways lunges. Left lunges, right lunges.
I admit that oxygen is hard to come by as I’ve all ready been to the top of a seventy story skyscraper and shuffled my feet on the half rack for twenty minutes, but I’m sure I’m not imagining this. Just to make sure I catch the eye of Daughter #1 who is pedaling on the lounge chair bike next to me. She confirms by a quirky smile that she too has noticed the bumble bee.
This is a holiday week and I’ve seen very few of the persons mentioned in previous posts so I’m down to scouting for new things to keep me going. The place is hopping with a real cross section of America. When I signed up I expected a room full of young, physically fit, don’t really need to be here people. As I take stock of today’s crowd I see a much broader spectrum of society. There are the young athletes to be sure, but there are also plenty of senior citizens and everything in between. Some are fit and firm, others, not so much. I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle of the pack, not too old, not too fat, not totally hopeless. Did I mention the lack of oxygen? The last observation falls under the asphyxiating excuse.
One regular is here, Trance Lady. This is the first time Daughter #2 has seen her and lucky girl, she has a good view from the half rack a row behind the show.
The bumble bee has finished her lunges and turned to take long backward strides uphill. This isn’t terribly unusual, I’ve seen it before. She places her hands on the handrails and lifts her feet from the belt and scissors her legs in the air twelve times – yes, I counted – and resumes her walk. I blink, thinking I’m hallucinating, but no, she does it again. She’s got this routine down and continues for another five minutes or so before altering it. Just what she’s accomplishing with this I have no idea. She seems lost in her own world, oblivious to the packed pit around her. I notice then she’s plugged into an iPod, listening to something that inspires this behavior. I turn up the volume on my own device and thank the pit gods that nothing on mine inspires me to such acrobatic feats. I have enough trouble staying on the machines as it is.
We make it back to the mercifully empty locker room where Daughter #2 proclaims herself traumatized for life. Between the earlier locker room incident and the Trance Lady she’s seen too much for her tender years. “I can’t stand weirdos,” she declares. I sympathize, but since these folks are the inspiration for this rambling blog I admit they make each visit more interesting than the last.
I’ve taken to an every other day approach to the stair thing-a-ma-jig and it seems to be paying off. I can now climb my seventy floors in less than twenty minutes and still do another twenty minutes on the half rack without having to call the paramedics. For an old broad I think that’s pretty good.
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