I went to my gym yesterday for the first time in a while. Or at least I assumed it’d been a while because when I went to grab my running shoes, they screamed, “Stranger danger!” and dove under the bed until I left the room. Insensitive jerks.
The gym I go to isn’t what one would consider a “nice” gym or a “fancy” gym or even a “gym where people don’t expose their genitals on the leg press machine,” but it’s usually good enough for my semi-annual visits. (I don’t want to get too sculpted.) However, yesterday all of my new-found exercise enthusiasm quickly dimmed when I found myself right behind the infamous “Sweat Lady.” Everybody hates “Sweat Lady.”
I don’t know who this woman is or anything about her besides the fact that she always wears black and always seems to get on the exercise bike right in front of me. She quietly sits down, puts in her earphones and then, once she’s covered the floor around her bike in towels, she starts to pedal. And pedal. And pedal. Five minutes later, sweat’s gushing off her body like she’s a motherf*#king race horse who just crossed the finish line at Belmont. Secretariat in a Champion sports bra.
Lest you think I’m using a bit of hyperbole here, I’m not. Ask anyone who’s ever been witness to her insane work outs—there are literally pools, rivers and streams of sweat underneath the bike (hence the towels) and Rico, the poor gym maintenance guy, has to mop up the area when she’s finally done with her two hours of exercising. Once he even had to take the bike apart and wipe off the inside because her sweat started to make the computer malfunction.
I’m pretty sure Rico’s about ten seconds away from doing serious bodily harm to Sweat Lady with a tube of clinical strength antiperspirant and a dirty squeegee, but that’s just speculation.
Anyway, when I went to the gym this morning and saw her glistening body on the bike, I decided to just steer clear and ask my husband to work out with me instead. Which was a good idea until he started acting like my trainer. And having your husband as your trainer is about as much fun as having your mother-in-law as your life coach. To wit:
Wendi, you’re not doing your squats right.
Yes, I am.
No, you’re not. You need to get lower. You’re not using the proper form.
How am I supposed to know the proper form?
Because I emailed the workout plan to you last night.
You did?
Yep. And you said, “Like I’m going to read this bullshit” and deleted it. Then you shoved four Thin Mints into your mouth and started scratching your feet with a Lego. Sigh. I fell in love with you all over again.
OK, how’s (pant) this squat? Good?
No, you’re not low enough.
Yes, I am!
No, you’re not!
WELL, MAYBE I CAN’T SQUAT PROPERLY, BUT AT LEAST I DON’T LOAD THE DISHWASHER LIKE A HALF-WITTED CHIMP NOR DO I LEAVE A TRAIL OF DIRTY SOCKS ALL OVER THE HOUSE LIKE I’M F*CKING “HANSEL AND GRETEL” TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM THE LAUNDRY ROOM! (pant) Could you please get me some water, sweetie? I’m a little parched.
Tomorrow when I go to the gym, I think I’m going to skip the treadmill and the personal training and just go hang out with Rico in the maintenance room for a few hours instead. Something tells me we probably have a lot to talk about.
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I feel for you – I also go to a gym where there is no shame… in thinking jeans qualify as workout clothes or that simply sitting on the recumbent bike qualifies as exercise. Although that might be better than sweating all over it to the point of computer malfunction.
It sounds like they should just give the sweat lady her own exercise bike and roped off area of the gym.
Someone needs to drop some salt tablets into her beverages. Or maybe the gym needs to put a sign “If you sweat enough to fill a pool, then please use one for your workouts. Thank you, Not your pool keepers.”
Just when I thought it was a good idea to go to the gym with my husband, I read this. Thank you for saving me the potential cost of divorce.
And that is exactly why I NEVER ask my husband to do anything with me. A two minute task turns into a 3 hour project. Yesterday I asked him to help me put the luggage in the attic. Sounds simple enough right???? NOOOOOOOO…..he took the opportunity to tighten all the screws on the ladder first. Then he spent 10 minutes thinking about what else he could put up in the attic! ARGH!!!! And he wonders why I enjoy my nightly glass of wine so much. BTW, the sock thing was spot on!
This is precisely why my husband is forbidden from sporting with me.
I mean, at least Hansel and Gretel got theirs. That witch actually got to eat them, right? Crap, I need to catch up on my Grimm’s before I start making jokes…
When I first started reading this post I first felt deja vu, is that weird? Anyway, I hope Sweat Lady doesn’t wear a thong. However much it cracks me up when women get sweat marks around their thongs so you can see very clearly that they’re wearing one, it sounds like it might be too much on Sweat Lady.
That’s how it is with everything..why do you think Baby E hates the family bike rides so much? Because Mr Big STuff feels this uncontrollable need to let everyone know the correct placement of their feet on the bike pedals.
He even tells us proper form for going up the hills.
I kid you not.
Ask your hubby: best answer: better to go uphill with your butt off the seat OR work the thigh muscles by staying in the seat?
Which gets promoted here?
That first paragraph alone was hilarious enough.
At least you WENT to the gym. I sat home and watched the Bachelor. And I quote:
“Please be confident in the fact that I am so wildly attracted to the fact that you are everything that I have not been with in my past.”
Brad Womack is a freakin riot in a neatly trimmed beard.
I have this image of you pretending to console Rico about Sweat Lady when what you’re really doing is egging him on to take her down. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.
I ordered PX90 in a bid to get fit “at home.” Like that’s every going to happen. The DVDs have so far been gathering dust for the past few weeks on the kitchen counter. Kudos to you for your bi-annual visits to the gym!
“And having your husband as your trainer is about as much fun as having your mother-in-law as your life coach.” Is brilliant.
I work out, I mean, I have a membership at the 24hour fitness on 183 and Lake creek and I have seen several Sweat Ladies there. And old dudes wearing bandanas.
Scratching your foot with a Lego? best line I’ve read today.
For this exact reason, I think it best that my husband and I don’t work out together. Ever. Let him drink beer, I mean play hockey, while I go to the gym for a REAL work out.
STRANGER DANGER!!!
The only thing worse than working out with your spouse is taking dance lessons together. Just a friendly warning. It’s bad.
Within the space of three days, I saw people at my gym drinking:
Starbucks
Mountain Dew
Diet Coke
All while on their machines.
I’ll meet you at Rico’s maintenance room – I’ll bring the cookies.
Wendi, oh my God. My husband? When he gets on the bike thing? He is Sweat Guy. I can’t be anywhere near it.
“No… no, I did not have sex with this man to make babies. Not me. No way. No how.”
And the worst part? He doesn’t seem to think laying a towel on the floor is a useful idea.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wendi Aarons, Good Day, Reg People. Good Day, Reg People said: RT @WendiAarons: I have so much fun at my gym. No, really. New post: http://tinyurl.com/4utpjx5 <–funniest thing this morning […]
This is why Hubby and I are fat together. 🙂
My husband tried to teach me about circuit training. I tried to bash his head with a barbell. We don’t go to the gym together any more.
And that’s why I just don’t go to the gym … Well that and well… I’m just lazy…
I’ll skip right over the gym part, since my husband has never even been in one, having sworn off organized exercise when he lost his athletic faith after high-school football turned out to be too much stress and no fun.
What I’m overjoyed to learn is that OTHER people think that their spouse and/or children load the dishwasher like “a half-witted chimp.” What is it about that? I have my daughters do the dishwasher and half the time they just give up when they haven’t even gotten everything in! I have to rearrange the dang thing just to get everything in right and then half the time they cover the thingy in the middle that should not be covered…you’d think after observing how I load the thing while they are unloading the appliance that is the love of my life that they would LEARN from the master loader and take those lessons to heart when loading, but it ain’t never happened and probably won’t ever happen now.
I read in some book or other recently where one of the characters instructs the woman who was slumming as household help how to load the dishwasher and the character thinks to herself, “Why is it that ever woman with a dishwasher is convinced she is the only one who knows how to load it?” I tell you why, because we ARE the only ones who know how to load it, that’s why!
Sorry for the rant, but the “Scrub-Free” cleaner which I used to clean the shower has fumes that have obviously gone to my brain…maybe because I still had to scrub regardless of the name. Which is a whole ‘nother rant….
I quit yoga cuz of the Grunting Like Having Sex Unitard Guy, or at least that’s what i tell myself.
And this is why I just run through the neighborhood.
It’s time to take Chris to Zumba class. You’ll kick his ass.
I would like to set up Sweat Lady with “Big Jim and the Visible Twins” at my gym.
I have yet to make it to the gym this year. My shoes have taken off for your house, I think,n and my dvd’s are like Melissa’s. Maybe tomorrow.
Then my husband told me about one of the New Year’s Resolution dudes who BLOW DRIES HIS BALLS in the locker room. IN PUBLIC. PROUDLY.
Get THAT image outta your head.
or you could avoid all this hassle by not working out which is was i do (don’t?). but then we wouldn’t get to read posts like this so skip that advice!
Oh my god I’m in hysterics!
[…] thanks to Wendi Aarons’ post about going to the gym I used all my abdominal strength not to pee my pants while laughing so I think can skip the gym […]
don’t know what’s funnier. you or your commenters.
libby… My husband tried to teach me about circuit training. I tried to bash his head with a barbell. We don’t go to the gym together any more.
totally want to hang out with the maintenance guy and you and the cookie lady. screw the cookies. let’s have margaritas.
My gyms Sweat Lady is EXACTLY why I stopped going to spinning.
Well, that and it was really fucking hard.
Usually, I’m just accidently stepping on the Legos that my kids leave lying around — which leads to some righteous vocabulary expansion of the four-letter word variety for our 7 and 8 year old. But using Legos on purpose to alleviate an itch? You are brilliant!