work it out

I try not to judge people at the gym. I really do.

Because let's be honest here. I bust up in the Bally Total Fitness Jersey City on a daily basis looking varying levels of completely disgusting, typically not having showered any time in the last 24 hours and possibly wearing the shirt I slept in the night before. It's not a beauty pageant. And really I tend to think that no matter what someone looks like when they come to the gym, at least they came to the gym. They're working out. They're trying.

However. There are two specific cases I encountered today (that I encounter every day) that defy my understanding. The first is the inevitable case of the woman working out in dress clothes. There was a lady on a bike in the gym this afternoon in a black button-down cardigan and a white collared dress shirt. Really m'am? First, I shudder to even contemplate how ungodly uncomfortable that must be, and second, are you planning on sweating in those clothes? And if the answer is no, that you weren't planning on sweating, then might you entertain my curiosity as to WHY you are at the gym in the FIRST PLACE?

The second case, though, is far more disturbing. I was contemplating said case while standing on the treadmill before my run dislodging my underwear from my rear end after an unfortunately timed wedgie. These things happen. I thought to myself, wow. This is probably not a pleasant sight for the people behind me. But my concerns about their sensibilities being offended were almost immediately assuaged when I stepped off the treadmill a short while later, only to spot about five wayward camel toes throughout the cardio floor.

I get that work-out pants are tight. I get that gym shorts are short. I do. But I also feel that the camel toe is a sign of something fundamentally wrong with your clothes, and maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm going to suggest that the fundamental problem is that THEY DON'T FIT YOU. I appreciate that people of all shapes and sizes exercise on machines around me every day in the gym, and I applaud every one of them for taking steps to better themselves. But if they could better themselves without revealing to me the precise latitude and longitude of every crevice of their crotch, I would be less likely to vomit on a stair-stepper because someone decided to do lunges in my general direction.

It is incidents like these that give me the drive to start that charity I've always talked about founding, to make sure that no camel toe is brought unknowingly out to scar an innocent world. I have often felt that perhaps the problem was just that these poor people did not know the heinous crimes against humanity they were committing, and thus I propose an organization to help build awareness. I'm calling it A Mirror For Every Home.


cheers,
elizabeth