I am back on the “be healthy” wagon, and decided to check out a few gyms in my neighborhood. I have always been scared of gyms because I clearly don’t belong in one, and I always feel like people are staring at me. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what the hell I am doing. I usually sit the wrong way on the weight machines, and can only do curls with a bottle of bud lite. The weights at the gym that I can usually lift are pink and purple colored. You typically see old ladies power walking with them.
I think I went to the gym four or five times during my four years at college. One of those times, I fell off the treadmill. Being in a gym does not bode well for me.
This year, I decided that I had to do something in the way of exercise, so I started by calling Equinox, since my kitchen looks right into it. Whenever I am eating Chinese leftovers over the trash, sink, or open dishwasher (rock bottom. this guy,) I look to my left into the cardio room full of beautiful people and feel really guilty. The lady at Equinox told me to come right over for a tour, so I waddled over to discuss membership options with her. After a half hour of flirting with me in her office, obviously a sales tactic, she brought me around to show me the different equipment. Walking around this place was like walking around the set of Gossip Girl. There were beautiful people everywhere who smelled like money, and no one was sweating. Everyone’s gym outfits looked like they cost more than my first car. I decided I could probably get by here if all I wanted to do was awkwardly shuffle down the treadmill, so we started discussing the cost. She started out with her offer to waive the initiation fee, which was well over $500. I told her I was more interested in the long term monthly cost. She whispered “One hundred and seventy eight dollars.”
What in the fucking fuck? Who in God’s name is spending that much on a gym? And since it is some kind of fancy upscale location, there is no budge room on the monthly price for anyone. So I kindly thanked the lady, and went on my way up a block to 14th Street, where all the peasants like myself work out.
After touring the YMCA, which was more crowded than JFK Airport, I decided to try a hole in the wall place called Synergy. The experience there was the complete opposite of Equinox. There was no flirting and no beautiful girl to take me on a tour. There was a laminated piece of paper with the prices on it ($39 a month) and a front desk woman who was like the poor-man’s version of Snookie. I requested a tour before I made my decision and she kind of shrugged, and lazily brought me down the stairs to a completely empty cardio room. This was the extent of her dialogue to me:
” This is the gym. These are the machines, like the cardio ones. Hmm. These are the weights. There’s a punching bag somewhere. And a bathroom somewhere.”
Then the tour was done. This gym had one or two roided out dudes lifting weights in the back, and some bleach blonde weathered looking Eastern European chick stretching by the water fountain. I think I have found my home. A place where I can go where no one will stare at me with a mix of shame and disgust as I fall off the stairmaster. On my way out, they gave me a four day pass. Then they immediately knocked off $50 from the price if I joined then and there. Done and done.
So far I have been three times. I have seen a woman who looks like Aunt Jemima, wearing a kerchief and a sweat-suit, who just dances by the weights and lifts one up once in a while. But my favorite is the blonde Eastern European woman, who just stretches all the time flipping her hair back and forth, like she is doing a photo suit. I have only seen her doing something remotely physical one morning, and it was walking backwards very slowly on the treadmill so that she could stare at some dude working out behind her.
I am sure I will have some very hilarious and awkward gym stories for you soon.
