24 Hour Weirdness

I am convinced that 24-Hour Fitness is not only a gym, but a parallel universe in which the bizarre is accepted and inhibitions and gender identity cease to exist. It’s refreshing in a way, like a return to our most basic animal instincts. I picture drinking from an African water hole with the man next to me in the tight yellow shorts, both of us eyeing the same warthog, as we sweat together on the prissy elliptical machines.

Nearly every time I leave the gym I have a funny story to tell. Sometimes funny-strange and sometimes funny-peepants, but nearly always a chin scratcher when it comes to human behavior.

I love to watch Jeopardy at the gym. When I’m on the machine and the clock strikes 7, I feel like a nerdy Cinderella, ready to say the answers aloud and give a smug nod whenever I get them right. Last night I was late and only caught the end, but opted for Wheel of Fortune instead of turning to my iPod. The contestants were pretty typical: a teacher, banker, and marketing manager, but that’s where any sense of normality went out the window. The first puzzle went like this… ‘A h_le in _ ne’. Before I could dance with the proverbial prince by shouting out the answer, the marketing manager beat me to it, shouting an enthusiastic “A HOLE IN WALL!”

I was incensed. Are you frickin kidding me, Janelle from Memphis?! A few minutes later, this puzzle appeared… ‘A p_nch of th_s and a _ash of that’. Once again, I puffed up my chest and once again, she cut me off, “A PINCH OF THIS AND A WASH OF THAT!” I wondered where Janelle’s head was at. Her guesses sounded like sex games in a gas station bathroom.

On one of my first visits to 24-Hour, I sat in the “hip abduction” machine, squeezing a whopping thirty pounds of weight and making that face you’re supposed to make when you work out. I saw a flash of white beside me, and noticed a soft, fuzzy middle-aged man a few feet away, doing burpies like his life depended on it. I smiled, good for you! I thought. Going back to my own machine, I felt a small droplet of moisture hit the side of my nose, then my arm, then my forehead. On a humid summer day, this would be met with a contented sigh and a glance upward. At the gym, I felt only confusion and alarm! A look to my immediate left confirmed it. Sure enough, burpie man was sweating profusely, and with every reach toward the heavens gave me a lovely man-shower. Now I know what a turkey feels like during basting season.

Another day, I went to the gym straight from work, navigating the machines in my skirt and heels. After changing, I was enjoying my time on the elliptical, which is the Anthony Michael Hall of athletic equipment. No matter how tough they try to make it look, it’s still the nerdiest machine in the gym.

In the middle of Alex Trebek’s interview section, I noticed a man approach me from the front. He was forties, I guessed, with gelled black hair. I wondered if his head was hot, as the gel seemed to have melted and coated his arms and chest.

“Did you just walk through here in a champagne colored skirt?” He asked, glancing briefly down at my chest. I threw up in my mouth a little. “Yeessss….?”

“You are the finest lookin’ thing I’ve ever seen in this gym. Do you want to come to a party with me tomorrow?” He flexed a little. “At the four seasons. A buddy of mine.”

Exhausted by forced conversation and incomplete sentences, I agreed. “Give me your card.” I said. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” The outright lie lingered in the air between us, thicker than the smell of Stetson. He walked away and I was left wondering, does that ever work?

I never called, but I saw him at the gym a week later. I hid behind an androgynous woman; he looked at me fiercely and did a one-armed push-up.

Between being covered in another person’s body fluids, rejecting mating calls from males twice my age, and shouts of excitement which barely resemble actual words, 24-Hour Weirdness continues to baffle and amuse me. But until they declare coors light as the new miracle weight-loss shake, my affair with Trebek must go on.