Weird Gym Dudes Part 4

The men’s changing room in my gym is, I find, an odd place.

People interact in very different ways. Most simply get changed, eyes down, and go about their business. Some position themselves at opposite ends of the room and shout across to each other with meaningless sentences (e.g. “Yeah boy… yeah… These shoes man! Yeah!”; the response “Man, it’s sick man, yeah” …. and then lower mumbling just to himself “Yeah boy, gonna do it man!… Yeah” … this is not language).

And some others do this:

They stand naked as the day they were born before the mirror that separates the centre of the room. Staring straight ahead into their own eyes with grim determination; they steel themselves for the task ahead: blowdrying their testicles.

What the hell? I mean really???? What the hell? They carefully comb their eyebrows. Coif their hair. Apply many and varied creams and lotions to arms, feet and neck. And then blowdry their testicles.

What the hell is wrong with the world?

Weird gym dudes: part 2

I have weird dudes in my gym.

Like the guy who wears many many items of clothing. He stands astride the cross-trainer. The cross-trainer is a machine designed to emulate cross country skiing. Lots of forward and backward motions.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/zone/priceCutsZone/partNumber/3354595/C$PRICECUT/1.htm

So, when someone gets on the machine dressed like this:

… much comedy ensues. It was like a car crash. I sat, frozen on the edge of the calf-stretchy-thing, unable to draw my eyes away from it. His sleeves, twice the length of his arms, flapped pitifully like some flightless bird. His hips, his legs bound dangerously close together by the belt around his knees, swung rapidly to overcompensate.

All the time huffing and panting, struggling to maintain some dignity.

That he ended this charade, while sweaty and dizzy, with an Ali-G style hand salute to the mechanized beast he had conquered is a testament to his self-image. Good work man.

Weird gym dudes: part 1

I’ve got some weird dudes in my gym.

There’s the weird guy with the leather beret in the pool. He walks, full of purpose and assumed might, from point to point across the pool. When he reaches his target, he pauses for a moment like the mighty Conan surveying all he owns, then, choosing a new spot, strides again across the path of many a swimmer.

He cares not for their puny inconvienience.