Tales From the Glitter Gym – Nonsense

For years I have dealt with all the stupidity at the Glitter Gym. I go to the gym, see something stupid, bottle my rage, have a good workout and then come home to write a new edition of the Tales From the Glitter Gym. It has worked well. I get a good workout and my readers get an occasional chuckle. Today I broke the pattern.

NOTE: Before I begin this tale, I need to explain that I am a very nice person. I get along with everyone. You can cut me off in traffic and it won’t even phase me. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that we can’t control the actions of others – only our reactions to those actions. As ZEN as I am outside the gym, I consciously do not follow “peace, love and happiness” when I’m in a gym. In the post The Hate Workout, I explained how I focus rage onto the weights, the weights get lighter and I get stronger.

When I went into the free weight room, I saw a personal trainer and her client. They had moved several benches to the side and were doing side bend stretches in front of the dumb bell racks. They were blocking access to almost half the weight room. I couldn’t believe was I seeing. My blood started to boil.

I’ve seen inconsiderate behavior before at the gym, but this was the worst. Almost the entire 2nd floor of my gym is an area where members can do stretching, yoga or whatever people do when they aren’t lifting weights. That area is many times the size of the free weight room. Yet this personal trainer decided to rearrange the heart of the free weight room to do stretching.

I snapped.

I took one look at the client and then stared at the trainer and in a voice I didn’t expect to be as loud as it came out, I said NONSENSE! I turned to the heavy dumb bells, grabbed a pair, did a set of incline presses making more noise that usual. I slammed the weights down.

Photo Dumbbell is by FLICKR user Yaun2003

When I looked over, they were both gone. They fled the free weight area and resumed their stretching on the other side of the room. Wow. Did I discover the secret code for dealing with idiots at the gym? Act like a crazy prisoner who just got access to the yard.

To drive the point home that their behavior was unacceptable and I might be unstable, I went over the area they vacated and started pulling all the benches back to their original location, all while dropping them into place. I made a point to be as loud as possible. I even threw their little half-Swiss Ball toy. My acting was stellar. I almost started laughing when I noticed the nervous looks on the other side of the gym.

It was the best workout I had in months and all I had to do was say NONSENSE.