What the fuck happened to this world? "The gym" used to be a damp, cold, concrete room with a couple of benches, a few squat racks and a long metal trough of multi-weighted barbells. There were rubber mats on the floor and mildew on the walls. The cassette version of Metallica's Black Album blared from the blown out speakers of a ghetto blaster. On the offensiveness scale, the smell ranked somewhere between the bottom of my hamper and one of my buddy Rob's Worther's Original-scented farts. It was an awful place that you wanted to get in and out of as fast as humanly possible. That was what I loved about it. So what the hell happened? Where did we go wrong?
Let me backtrack for just a second. See, I live in an apartment complex. To give you an idea of just how classy the place is, here are a few facts:
1) It is a gated community. Neither of the gates work. They are always open.
2) I have a wonderful view of the back parking lot of the rent-controlled apartment complex next door. Do you know what happens in the back parking lots of rent-controlled apartment complexes? Drug deals happen. I have seen more hand-to-hands than the entire cast of The Wire.
3) Every Saturday morning, I am routinely awakened around 8am by two elderly Spanish women who apparently go door to door looking for residents who speak Spanish. They never seem to remember that a gringo lives in 702G.
4) Repeat fact #3, but change 8am to 7pm, and change elderly Spanish women to Mormons. They must be REALLY concerned for my soul. Do I keep the computer that loud when I'm watching porn? I mean, they only live three apartments over. Oh, and the last time they came to save my soul, they were out of English-language pamphlets - so they left me a Spanish one. You can't make this shit up.
5) Finally, at least twice a week, I observe people from the neighboring complex approach the iron fence with a sack full of laundry, toss it over the top into my complex, then squeeze through the bars, pick up the sack and proceed to our laundry room to wash their clothes.
In addition to these wonderful perks, we also have a gym facility. In our gym, we have:
- a bench press machine
- a butterfly press machine
- a lat pulldown machine
- a rowing machine
- a curl machine
- a leg press machine
- a leg curl machine (without a pad)
- a leg extension machine
- an ab machine
-three treadmills (one of which is functional)
- a spin bike (non functional)
- a stair master (non functional)
- an elliptical (functional 50% of the time)
Remember Drago's high-tech training montage in Rocky IV? Yeah, pretty much the opposite of that. Are you ready for this? All those machines - no pins. You have to RENT the pins. "Sorry, Mr. Tatum, that $845 per month you're paying doesn't include utilities, maintenance or pins." But I digress. Back to the gym-metamorphosis. I go in tonight, praying that no one is in there using the lone-functioning treadmill. Of course, someone is. And not just any someone - it's Fashionable Gym Guy. He's running on the treadmill in plaid, Sean John cargo shorts, a skin-tight Armani Exchange t-shirt and those Diesel half-dress shoe/half sneakers. Hey, you gotta' look good doin' it. After all, one of the 875 overweight, middle-aged, Spanish housewives that lives in our complex might come through - and she might not even have one of her 8.2 kids in tow. Meanwhile, the combination of sweat and designer hair gel that's dripping from his forehead is melting holes in the floor like the blood from the monsters in Aliens. And just as I think I might be able to swallow my rage and ride it out until he's done, I hear the faint sound of "Kiss Me Through the Phone." Is it playing through the speakers? No. We don't have speakers. It's his ring tone. He stops mid-stride to take the call, but stands right next to the machine so that I know he isn't finished. He's just taking a break. My blood pressure spikes so high that I probably burned more calories bursting blood vessels that I would have on the treadmill.
This is not an isolated incident. It's an epidemic. "The Gym" has gone from a subculture to a social institution. It is a breeding ground where random acts of douchebaggery are committed daily. Remember when I said that the gym used to be a terrible, uncomfortable place that you wanted to spends as little time as possible in? Now, they have full movies for you to watch while you're running on the elliptical. If you spend the time it takes to watch a feature-length movie in one of the old school gyms, you'd contract tetanus.
We've gone from Zubaz stretch pants and thin tank tops to designer sweatsuits. I think I saw a guy in Planet Fitness one time do a set of squats in a three-piece suit and a pair of Bruno Maglias.
Is it any wonder America is getting fatter? Heart-disease, obesity, high-cholesterol, stroke - I would rather deal with ALL of these things than deal with Fashionable Gym Guy.
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