Observations from a Stationary Bike

What is it about the gym and men? Just this morning, there, on either side of me, were two rather smelly guys. The one to the right was pedalling at such a slow rate that it surprised me that he had broken a sweat. However, when the guy took the bike to my left, whoo, you could smell him a mile away, the kind of which made me debate whether to cut my workout short and move onto another machine.

To keep my mind on something other than the stench emanating from both sides of me, my eyes wandered across the main floor. On the row of weight machines were five older women who kept preening for each other when they finished a set.

I'm better at this than you are.

Well I look better than you do.

Moving on... on the elliptical was a teddy bear of a guy. You know the look, shaggy three-day beard, full head of hair, big round belly.

Not much there either. On the weight machine in the middle of the floor, finally! Something to look at! A gym rat. Complete with a tee-shirt with the sleeves cut out to expose muscular upper arms, and tight biceps while he was doing his curls. Too old to be a college kid home from school. Not one of the local public servants like police or firefighter who work out there. Hard to pinpoint his story.

But enough of a distraction to keep me occupied until smelly guy on the left finished up. But his leaving brought my mind back to the bike. And the conclusion that it wasn't worth it having to be next to smelly guy on the right. Time to move on to the lone, solitary, isolated but very aerobically effective rowing machine.

Nope, nothing to look at there to keep me going after the first 500 metres.

Moving on again to the stretching area... One of the personal trainers was chastising a client for not stretching. He complained about travelling too much, and hiking, and biking. If anyone needed a personal trainer, he did.

Okay then... let's just finish the stretching and get out of here. Until a firefighter acquaintance stopped to talk on his way out. That led to an opportunity to have the fire department talk to the Girl Scout leaders' meeting sometime next year.

Perhaps if the Messrs. Smellies hadn't forced me away from my workout, then a Roundtable talk for the Girl Scout leaders wouldn't have been planned. Serendipity. Don't you love it?