It’s been six months since I stepped foot into a Glitter Gym. Today I started at my new gym, which isn’t pure Glitter, but it certainly isn’t a Rust Gym. It’s an odd hybrid, which I’ll call an Independent Glitter. Before I kick off the stories from today, I realized that I never blogged about The Smell from my last Glitter Gym.
In previous posts I’ve told you how I’ve been visually assaulted by witnessing stupid acts at the gym. And I’ve also mentioned how my ears have been attacked from the dreadful the music played in a Glitter Gym. The third sense that came under attack last December was smell.
Old Ladies – I applaud the elderly for going to the gym. That is great you’ve decided to improve your health. Just cut back on the amount of perfume you wear. Your sense of smell faded decades ago, but mine didn’t.
Think about how little you wore when your nose worked back when you were 20. That should be enough to get you through your super-slow 15 minute recumbent bike / People Magazine work-out.
Euro Dudes – Every so often a young guy from Europe will head into the free weight room. You can tell instantly. They always are wearing half a bottle of the strongest cologne on the planet.
Unlike the old lady, who lost their ability to smell over decades, these guys are culturally raised to treat every trip out of the house as if they were going to a Prague nightclub where the cigarette smoke is so think you can’t see more than 3 feet (1 meter) in front of you. So they overdose on cologne to combat the smoke. When they show up in a non-smoking environment like the gym, nobody else can breathe due the fumes coming off them.
The Legend of Pig Pen – This story goes back to 1996-1998. There was a guy who was feared in Tampa gyms. He was a nice guy, but he smelled awful. A few of us started referring to him as Pig Pen. When he came into a gym, the smell was so awful, people would leave.
Changing gyms was not an option. This guy traveled around the city and had a membership at every gym. He spent his entire paycheck on memberships, protein powder and steroids. He had no money left over for soap or deodorant. My guess is he is probably still haunting the gyms of Tampa. If you smell a guy about 45 with super-blonde hair and clear signs of steroid abuse – that is him.