Oh! A Gime!

I am confident that Queen Elizabeth sweats. I am equally confident that she does not grunt like a baboon or groom her nose hairs in the gym. She manages to keep her composure at the age of 82 years young. So what is your excuse you ill-mannered sack of crap? I will never for the life of me understand why people find it acceptable to behave so disgustingly when they are working out. At any rate, I will not let that deter me from my purpose of cataloging the depths to which human civilization has sunk.

I think it only fitting to begin with the beginners. I know you have seen these individuals. They stroll in chattering with two or three of their flabbiest, most irritating friends, all decked out in matching track suits (or for men, those ridiculous over-sized basketball shorts that hang down to your ankles because they are designed for folks much taller and more athletic than you). They then gather around some complicated, and inevitably popular machine and stare at it like they’re in an art museum. You’ll notice them hide their confusion by continuing to chatter as they sit backwards in the seat, put their hands tentatively on the foot rest and thrust outward just hard enough to give themselves a hernia. Eventually they roll onto the floor clutching their side and crawl over to the next machine you want to use so that they can further injure themselves while also keeping you from getting on with your workout. Ordinarily, I’d say killing two birds with one stone is great, unless you happen to be one of the birds.

The beginners are followed closely behind, literally, by a hoard of wife-beater wearing steroid junkies who love the gym more than life and themselves more than the gym. They identify themselves as members of this genus by pausing after every three reps to check themselves out in the mirror. Adding to the freakishness is the fact that they perform this ritual in pairs.

“Wow, Franz,” says Hans, “that last set really makes the hairs on your arm look especially buff.”

“Thanks Hans,” says Franz, “if you check me out from a forty-five degree angle I hardly look pudgy at all in this wife beater.”

While I find this whole production odd, I would not necessarily commit these folks just for a bit of delusional body dysmorphia. What is clinically nutso, however, is when the same individuals press themselves right up against the mirror to explore the various orifices of their face. I know you know what I’m talking about so you can just take your guffaw and muffle it. It continues to baffle me that people who take no care to groom themselves at home, suddenly feel a social pressure to inspect their faces for deer tics while they are in the gym. I suppose what I’m really asking is why are they susceptible to one form of shaming and not another? Surely there’s plenty of shame to go around.

Last but not least, we have the screamers. This is a subset of the steroid junkies who manage to be irritating both during and between exercises. Now it is worth mentioning that in whatever gym you frequent, no one is going to the Olympics. They are probably not even going to make it past the Krispy Kreme next door. The only point then of their loud panting and vociferating seems to be to draw attention to their narcissistic mirror-loving selves and their heterosexual gym partners. While I try not to get graphic, I hope you’ll humor me with a little exercise. Imagine that these grunting primates are sitting on a toilet rather than a weight bench. If you’re as disgusted as I am, you’ll take advantage of the next available opportunity to drop an unfortunately placed free weight on one of their hormone swollen feet.