So, yeah…
I worked out at a gym the other day. (You’re supposed to wait until I write the funny parts before you start laughing. That’s how this works. We have A System up in here. Respect the System. Mmmkay, thanks…)
Anyway, we walk in this Walmart-sized temple to sweat and pain, and I was astounded: it was so nice. The beautiful human specimens at the front desk were witty and helpful. The flower arrangements (they *had* flower arrangements!) were all alive. The place was immaculate. People with yoga mats slung across their shoulders, body-builders, toned and muscled types of all ages paraded around oblivious to the fact that they served as advertising for the effectiveness of this whole benefits-of-exercise thing everyone keeps yammering on and on about.
Friends, I had stepped into A Whole New World. Cue Obligatory Irritating Disney Song:
I took my little guest card and went to put my things in the locker room. Walking in, it seemed as though I had stepped into the monstrous dressing room of a Rodeo Drive boutique. That joint was supah-swank, lemme tell you. Mahogany lockers. Gorgeous showers. Hairdryers for everyone. Feeling completely out of place in my Target tank and my clearance rack Adidas, I went back to meet my friend.
“Let’s warm up on the elliptical.”
I followed him up two flights of stairs that rivaled the grand staircase of the Titanic. At the summit, an ocean of torture devices greeted me. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
“I usually warm up with the elliptical for a half hour, then do an hour or so of spin-class, and end with weights.”
Good God, I thought. This is where I’m going to die.
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
I climbed onto the elliptical. I pushed some buttons. I started ellipticall-ing or whatever. Well, this is not so bad. I can do this.
Ten minutes pass. My legs, unaccustomed to anything more strenuous than a run downstairs for a pint of Ben&Jerry’s, were now in open revolt. I looked over at my friend. Dude was smiling and zipping along like he was on a Sunday stroll. Unbelievable.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Hmm…how to respond…
“Well, I’m about done with this thing,” I said, hopefully sounding non-chalant even though I am nearly certain I was breathing like an elephant in labor. The timer said I had twenty more minutes of this. I feared looking at it: I might have cried.
“Okay. Stop when ever you’re done and we’ll move onto the weights. I think we’ll skip the spin class-that may be a bit much for your first time here.”
There is a God.
In an effort to appear Not Completely Pathetic, I vowed to myself I’d keep going for another valiant five or six minutes. This is a much bigger deal that is looks like on paper. Pressing down on those evil pedals, I tried to think of other things. I let my gaze wander. Some chick in front of me was doing at least 70 in a 30 mph zone on her elliptical. Jillian Michaels would have been so proud. I muttered a few bowling words under my breath in her general direction and looked elsewhere. In the row in front of me were stair-climbing machines, which apparently have speed controls that can be adjusted. A crazy buff guy was *sprinting* up the steps of that thing. Sprinting. He wasn’t even sweating. It was amazing. I think he must have been an android or on Nick Fury’s payroll or something. I was so astounded and distracted by him, I made it through my next five minutes and did not actually die.
We walked to the weight machines. I was thrilled: one can sit down on some of those things.
“It’s leg day for me, so let’s do the quad press.”
God hates me.
“You’re gonna have to toss me.”
He adjusted the weights to toddler levels for me, as I never lift anything heavier than a fat novel or the Fall Fashion preview of InStyle magazine, and I pressed up on the machine. I remember, with blurred fondness, the days of my youth when I was physically fit. I remember being able to lift a non-embarrassing amount of weight. Ah, the Good Old Days…
Yeah, that ship has sailed, my friends. Sailed away and right off the edge into oblivion, as though the world, unlike my belly, actually were hard and flat.
We did several other leg machines, my poor friend having to help me and suffer through my whining with each one. A lady got off one machine and I sat down and tried it using the same amount of weight: she was about my size. Surely I can do what she did, right?
It was like trying to move the Great Wall of China.
Sigh.
We finished our workout and walked down the Grand staircases (why, God, why all these damn beautiful steps? Whyyy?). My friend looked at me and grinned, “Are you feeling a little Gumby-ish?” I clung to the stairrail for dear life and just nodded.
“It gets easier,” he said. The man wasn’t even winded. I smiled and nodded again. I would have said something if I could have breathed. We went to our respective gorgeous locker rooms, got changed, and left.
“How’d you like it?” my sweet friend asked, smiling as we walked into a bakery to cancel out all of the healthy stuff we had just done.
“I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.”
- Neil Armstrong
“It was a lot harder than I expected,” I said, “but I did enjoy it.” And I really did. There is something deeply satisfying about doing something good for yourself, even if it is something hard, something truly humbling. I have no intention of becoming a gym rat, and none of you people will ever see me sprinting on a stair machine, but if you sit down on a weight machine that appears to have had the weights adjusted for a third-grader, you’ll know I’ve been there embarrassing myself thoroughly, trying to become a better version of myself, trying to become a little stronger. Trying, anyway…