The New "Fit"

Someone made a good point yesterday that the first few days after the New Year turn gyms into unbearably crowded prisons of sweat and fat people. Resolutioners who need to meet their four-days-a-year-every-year quota show up in throngs, looking much like the crowds demanding a free Burrito whenever a Chipotle opens. There is, of course, a 90 percent overlap between these two groups.

In the past two days that I've gone to the gym I've accumulated some grievances which I would like to air here in a post that the aggrieving parties will never read.

1. These are weights. They are not menu items. Don't contemplate them the same way you would contemplate which Value Meal you want at McDonald's. This isn't a "Do I feel like a McFish today?" scenario. This is a "How much can I lift?" situation. Go to the weights. Pick up a big one. Can you lift it? No? Move down one. Can you lift that one? Yes? Awesome! Now move.

2. If you insist on using the cardio machines, please take a break from texting your pot dealer and actually use them. And I understand that Troga is a thing now, because of Modern Family, but there is a time and place for it and overcrowded hours are not the time and jamming your hand in my face is not the place.

3. Dude, when you're lifting weights, PUT DOWN YOUR GODDAMNED IPOD VIDEO! Dude! Come on! Are you really trying to lift one weight in one hand and then use the other one to hold your iPod so you watch an old Two and Half Men episode? Really? It really can't wait? Also, you have terrible taste in entertainment.

4. Yes, we shouldn't be judging you, but in our defense, you shouldn't be wearing jeans to the gym.

5. While I admire your ambition, I don't think a treadmill is the best place to both make phone calls and read a broadhseet newspaper. And I just really hope that whatever is in your thermos isn't coffee.

Yes, all of these things happened and they all involved 4 different people. I really can't wait for next week.