Things that Bother Me: The Gym Edition

With the temperatures here in Texas mimicking the surface of the sun quite a bit of my time in training has been spent indoors at the gym. This is not a bad thing as the gym I go to is a huge LifeTime Fitness with four pools and a gazillion treadmills. The square footage of this place makes many a Super Wal-Marts blush and we are fortunate to have such a great place to train when the mercury reaches hell-like levels.

With a gym this size means that I am going to have to encounter that which bothers me more than anything else in the world: Other People.

This edition of Things that Bother Me will be entirely focused on certain types of folks at the gym:

• 30 Second Treadmill Guy - This is always a dude. He gets on the treadmill, usually the one right next to me, and does a series of stretches for his arms (makes no sense?) and then proceeds to crank the treadmill up as fast as it can go. He usually hangs on for about 30 seconds and then stops and leaves.  And as he leaves he usually struts away like he is Ben Johnson! Great workout dude, thanks for playing.

• The Checking out my Stats Treadmill Guy - Once again this is always a dude. Last week this happened two times in one run. A guy gets on the treadmill next you and is constantly looking at your speed and distance? It is a treadmill buddy! We are not moving? And I am not racing you? This is more annoying than anything else just because you are trying to get your workout in and you sense the eyes upon you.

• The Shaving Naked Guy - There is this one guy I have seen a few times when I come into the locker room after Master's swim. He is completely naked shaving his face standing at the sink. This is not what bothers me.  It is that his junk is resting on the sink. Seriously, you cannot toss on a towel and keep the boys off the counter? I openly wish that the guy with athlete's foot was cleaning out his toe gunk on that very spot on the sink!

• The Using Blow Dryer for your Junk Guy - This major infraction has been witnessed on many occasions. Usually it is an elderly guy. He takes the blow dryer and holds it under his towel to dry off his balls.  It is very classy!

• The Guy Who Needs the Locker Right Next to Me - As mentioned early the LTF I frequent is ginormous. This means the locker room is rather spacious as well. However, it never fails that I will be standing at my locker getting changed and someone will come in and want the locker right next to or above me. There are literally 1000 other open lockers with no one around them and they have to choose this locker? People become such creatures of habit that they cannot move to another locker - just ridiculous. A few months back I actually yelled at a guy who attempted this, felt bad afterwards but it needed to be done.

• The Entire Gym Parking Lot - The front of the gym where traffic intersects is tight. Yet this does not prevent people from stopping to pick-up others at the front door. This backs up all the other cars trying to find a place to park. My scientific study has shown that 9 out of 10 people who do this are fatasses. Glad you are off the couch chubby now walk that extra 20 yards to the car.

• The LifeTime Fitness Music Video Channel - This is quite awful. If you are at a LTF and forget your iPod I suggest you go home because the music will drive you crazy. Thanks to the video channel I now realize all current top 40 music absolutely sucks and every video is the same: Scantily clad singer/dancer chick, surrounded by a bunch of other scantily clad dancer chicks, they begin suggestively dancing in some pyramid scheme with the lead chick at the top, they may or may not be in water/mud/cafeteria/jungle, a group of scantily clad muscular guys at some point during the song enter the video.  Boom! I just directed and produced a LTF music video, genius. 

• The Text Message Guy/Girl - This group has grown rather significantly over the last few years and us usually a younger crowd but not always. You will be on your treadmill and notice someone come in and jump on a machine. They will sit on this machine for a long time and send a shit-ton of text messages.  Sometimes they will even laugh out loud so we can all see how funny the message they just received was. They may do one or two sets on the machine in between texts but usually will get up and leave without doing any work. 

That is all I got for today!

What do you see at the gym that bothers you?


Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Things that Bother Me ...

I wrote the below list before this intro and must say I feel much better.  "Things that Bother Me .." may have to become a weekly feature on the Carrot.  Pretty sure I did a good job of equally offending a plethora of different groups of people.   Enjoy.

Things that Bother Me ...

• Minivans - As an outside sales rep and an avid cyclist I spend a lot of time among other drivers.  This means I see a shitload of stupidity taking place on America's roads!  I would be willing to bet that over 2/3rds of the head shaking acts of idiocy witnessed is perpetrated by a distracted motorist in a minivan. And a minivan ran over and killed my pug puppy 13 years ago.  Suck it minivans.

• Boston Globe Hack Brian McGrory for this asinine article stating that cyclists should not be allowed on Boston Streets.   Here is his email (mcgrory@globe.com) if you would like to let him know that he is indeed a douchebag!

• Parents who think their children are gifted geniuses - In most of these occurrences the parents are barely functioning morons so, to be fair, the children might be advanced considering the shallow swamp of a gene-pool they originated from.  Most of these conversations start like this, "Little Jimmy is so gifted, he figured out how to walk up stairs already!"  And they end like this, "Yeah, Mommy of the Year, you might want to turn around because your future rocket scientist is eating cat shit in the back yard."

• Cats - They just suck.  

• FUN, FAIR, POSITIVE SOCCER -  First off soccer blows  but it blows even worse when the kids leagues do not keep score.  Everybody is a winner! Yeah!  Let's all go get ice cream now.  This teaches kids that mediocrity is acceptable - Bullshit!  You think the Chinese have fun, fair, positive soccer? If Ricky Bobby taught us anything it is that if you Ain't First, You're Last.  

• People who think I am an asshole because when they ask me this question, "Can I ask you to do me a favor?"  and I reply with, "No" and then quickly walk away.  It is better to just ask and not give me a chance to get out of doing something I probably do not want to do ... just sayin.  Maybe you could learn something from my honesty.

• The overuse of the phrase "Just Sayin ..."  

• California - Just a failed social experiment that place turned out to be.

• California Signs Law to Teach Gay History in Schools - Listen, I am all for gay marriage and gay rights.  That is not the problem.  What the problem is  - is that kids  have zero idea what the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence means.  They have no idea what type of sacrifices were made by The Greatest Generation or by the Founding Fathers of our nation.  Gay history is going to be taught in Social Studies Class - my concern is what is it going to take the place of?  Should they ax the Civil War?  Maybe modify the length of the chapter on the Great Depression?  I am so sick of political correctness dictating what is taught in the classrooms.

• Pittsburgh Steelers All-Pro Linebacker James Harrison - Lovely interview asshat!

• People who still pay with checks - Okay dude, if you are reading this and are thinking, "I still pay with checks because ...."  Let me just stop your excuse making self right now.  Instead if commenting, log off the computer, get in your car (preferably not a minivan), drive to your bank, and get a freaking Debit Card.  Everybody standing behind you at the local grocery store from this point forward will forever be grateful.  Go.  Now.

• The excruciatingly ridiculous amount of commercials on Versus during every broadcast of Le Tour de France.

• France - This has nothing to do with Le Tour.   The Tour is so great that we tolerate the French each and every year during July.  The French have always just bothered me.  Surprised they haven't surrendered to Mark Cavendish yet?

• Emotional Dudes - Get a hold of yourself Nancy.  Crying is for chicks and kids. Man-up and rub some dirt on it.  Time to be a little less Dawson Leary and a lot more John Wayne.   As a side note - Emotional dudes are probably the main reason California, France and Cats bother me.

If you have things that bother you that I missed please feel free to add them to the comments.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Jeff