More Awkward Moments

I've mentioned the problem of naked old men roaming the gym locker rooms without a care in the world, flapping in the breeze and allowing themselves to air dry after a shower. It appears this was only the start of a much larger issue and evidently their hippy-esque, carefree way of exposing themselves is really more of an epidemic, spreading with a tenacity akin to kudzu.

I had thought the naked lunges to be bad - and don't get me wrong... they are - but I assumed it couldn't possibly get any worse. It can.

We were all the way upstairs on the 3rd floor, so in theory we should have been safe, what with the locker room being both all the way across the building and two floors down. But this snake in the grass was waiting for us and struck when least expected.

At some point I noticed this older gentleman because every time I looked up he was right next to me at another machine. He was exercising with great fervor and I will hand it to him that he was in excellent shape for his age, and also ridiculously flexible, both as an older fellow and as a human being in general. Perhaps he was making a statement with his close proximity and vigorous exercise. He's may be a century older than me but he was making me look like an invalid by comparison. Whatever the reason for his constant presence, he was easily ignored, so I didn't really pay him much mind initially, but it shortly because impossible to ignore him. Believe me, I tried.

I began to take note that after each short set he would do on any given machine, he would walk over to the leg press and stick his foot on top of the section that houses the weights, which basically means he had to stick he leg straight up in the air, which appeared to be no hurdle for him. The problem with this stretching was two-fold.

1. He was wearing shorts. Now, even regular shorts will ride up a bit when you go too far out of the normal walking range of motion. The shorts this man had on were anything but normal and already showed too much leg even when just standing normally.
2. He was facing us often times when he did this stretch.

So what do I see when I look up but some random old guy's cash and prizes staring me in the face. Augh. I thought I must still be in the locker room for a second. How else could this possibly happen?

I didn't know if any of my friends who were with me noticed, but I didn't want to call attention to it lest I draw its dark gaze down upon me, like naming Voldemort in Harry Potter... not that I have any idea who that is. But apparently someone noticed, because after a while I hear one of them say "I'm tired of looking up and seeing that old guy's naughty bits." Though, I think they said it a little more vulgarly but I can't be sure as my mind tried to wipe that whole day from my memory as some sort of defense mechanism for my sanity.

After a while, that guy vacated the area and we were able to use the leg press for which we had so patiently waited. On my last turn, I looked over and noticed another guy waiting on me to finish. He was a giant who looked to be around 6'7" and his biceps were as big as my torso. He also looked angry, but was pretty polite and told me to take my time. I let him know when I was done as he was looking elsewhere at the time and I moved over to another machine. It was around this time that I (as well as my friends) noticed the free-spirited elder gentleman returning. And he was headed right towards the leg press, which the Giant now occupied.
I didn't really think anything of it at first, because of course the old guy wasn't going to do his crazy stretching on the machine that someone was using, especially not the current fellow.

Never have I been so wrong. And I've been pretty wrong in my day.

Old boy didn't even hesitate when he shot his uncomfortably muscled leg straight up and let it come to rest on top of the machine, facing the Giant, shorts falling open to display himself for the world. Quite frankly I expected the big guy to just punch him at which point the old bloke would have exploded into a fine mist. Instead he looked right over at me, right in my eyes where I saw a plea for help, and deep, deep sadness. At which point my friends and I all exploded in laughter, though our joy was mixed with sympathy. Giant kept eye contact as if afraid to look away and was just shaking his head non-stop. Not really what I expected from such a scary looking guy. But he may have been in shock.
When Giant was done, he made his way over to us and we all had a laugh and talked about what had happened, like survivors of some great tragedy. We would all be forever changed after that day.

Personally, I'd have steered clear of Giant. Turns out he's actually a pretty stand-up guy but he sure looks scary as hell. That old guy really has some balls on him. And unfortunately I am qualified to make that statement.

The Gym, Nausea, and Public Showers

In an effort to get back on track with taking better care of myself, I crawled out of bed at 4:50AM this morning to go to a 5:30 class at the gym. And for those who've been to my house, yes, there were still people walking around on the streets even at that time.

I only managed to get 6 hours of sleep, which clashes a bit with the whole "taking better care of myself" idea, but I'll need some practice to get the balance right. Beyond forgetting deodorant and nearly walking out of the house without pants, I felt I was off to a strong start. But two things were plotting against me; how hard spin class can be after not going for months...and public showers.

Several months ago, I was on a roll and was rather dedicated to going to a class several times a week and that was forcing me to eat better because I'd feel like I did all that work for nothing otherwise. It was working out well. But everything went downhill when I moved because I no longer had to go by the gym to get home and thus 'out of sight, out of mind'. I can in fact be that pitifully weak-willed and easily distracted; I'm not proud.

A note about spin class for those who've never been. If you're not in excellent shape, there are three phases that you are going to experience when you go to your first several classes.

* Wanting to Vomit

* Wanting to Die

* Uncontrollable Urination

Okay, I made that last one up. Maybe. I think the actual last phase is "grim acceptance" but sadly I don't ever make it to that one.

Still it felt good (besides the 45 minutes during which it felt horrible) to be back on track. Or at least starting back on the path to be on said track. ~16 miles wasn't a bad first day. Though it's depressing when the instructor starts talking about how all that effort translates into the kind of food you can eat. Two .99 cent bags of Cheetos and all that work is undone? The effort-to-calories-burned ratio always seems horrible skewed. Thankfully I don't like Cheetos. Though I do like this guy:

It's also depressing that he - the instructor, not Chester - is probably close to double my age and was tearing it up all the while talking to the class without a hint of being out of breath. His legs were moving in a ridiculous blur, like the Roadrunner.

Since I had to go to work directly after class, I was forced to use the public shower or be shunned by my coworkers. I'm sure most people are long beyond the discomfort with public showers that I felt this day but, this being my first experience with a public shower, I was none too pleased. The place was filled with far more naked old men proudly flaunting their cash and prizes than any one location should ever contain.

I wanted to shower as fast as humanly possible, but I had to make it to a free shower-head first. As I uncomfortably make my way through there - giddy elders all around talking about their moles and popping each other on the butt with towels - where do I look? You might think you want to look the people dead in the eye, but you don't really want to do that. You want to avert your eyes and cast them down in discomfort or shame, except you really don't want to look down. You could close your eyes but one ill-fated bump into someone and there's not enough soap in the city to scrub away those memories. Squint. That's the key. You can't make out details but you can make out the octagon shapes of the fellows easy enough to keep clear.

Also, I should note that old people's butts are freakin' weird. The shape and angles are all wrong, like some sort of nightmarish horror from an H.P. Lovecraft story. They look like someone was trying to make biscuits out of their backside but hasn't fully rolled the dough yet. They are pasty-white and soft (...I assume), half totally flat and the other half more or less dome-shaped, though with various pits and dents all over the surface (as if the dome was hit by a shower of meteorites).
And I guess some of them look like you dropped the dough on a floor covered in white cat hair.

It is unfortunate that I try to share this information while attempting to eat my already unsatisfying lunch. It's unfortunate that I had to learn these things at all. Today; the day I lost my innocence and the world became a cold, dark place.