My uniform (ie: you’ll rarely see me in anything different) is jeans and boots, depending on the occasion as to whether I wear a nice shirt or a work shirt. If I’m ever in just shorts and a t-shirt it’s because I’ve either just had a shower and am about to head to bed or it’s Saturday and I can’t be arsed getting dressed. So as you can imagine, I rock up to all sorts of things in jeans and boots, even where it is not quite appropriate... Like the gym for example.
I don’t know how she does it but she does. Rinda can talk me into anything. So there I was, waiting patiently in the foyer of the YMCA, after paying $15, for Rinda to stop being late. When she finally arrived she looked at me sideways.
“Is that what you are going to wear?”
Well, yes, jeans and boots and a work shirt. I’ve done more exercise (and got paid for it) working cattle or building or fixing fences in the very same outfit I wore this day. So, yes, the gym? In my adequate attire? Bring it on!
I had never been in a gym before, nor do I want to repeat this event. Other than what’s on TV and in movies I didn’t really know what to expect. So when Rinda swung the doors open I wondered where the rest of the gym was hiding. Grey besa brick walls shape out the weights area and the contraption area. There was music playing from the TV but the wall fans were so loud they couldn’t be heard. The weights area was full of blokes, many of whom were full of themselves. Nope, I didn’t want this area. Rinda convinced me to step on a contraption.
“I don’t like it, it’s weird, it’s making me exercise” I’m such a spoil-sport.
So she popped me on a fake bike that doesn’t go anywhere. I peddled nice and slow and lazy because on this thing there was no destination to reach. I noticed it had a screen though. So, like a kid, I started pressing random buttons.
“This thing won’t work. It’s broken!” and Rinda came back with a bemused look on her face.
“Peddle harder, trust me”
“But I don’t want to peddle harder”
“Just do it!” Bloody Nike ad she is! But I did it and suddenly the screen was working. She played around with a few things including telling it I was a male and that I wanted to ride up and down many fake hills.
I peddled easy then hard then easy then hard according to all these hills that I couldn’t see. And then the screen went black.
“It’s broken again!”
“You weren’t peddling hard enough” shouted Rinda from some contraption that looked weird.
Damn. This gym business is annoying. So, I hooked back into peddling, reset myself as a male wanting to ride fake hills and got back into it. 20 minutes later the fake hills had finished and between the two stints on the fake bike I MAY have burned off ONE piece of chocolate that I ate before I came in to this crowded room.
Of course, this effort was not sufficient in Rinda’s eyes. She expected more from me though I refused to take any of it seriously.
“Try this thing” she convinced me to stand high up on this thingy that helped me fake doing some chin ups.
“Five times or I won’t let you down”... I did three. She knows better than to argue with me.
She made me sit in a contraption and push some padded bars out.
“Five times!”... I did two.
“Planks!”
“No, planking is stupid and isn’t fashionable anymore”
“Hold it for 30 seconds” she reckoned. I couldn’t hold it for any, I was too busy laughing and perving on a bloke.
“That’s not going to help your stomach muscles!” Liar, I could feel the burn... from laughing so hard.
After a bit of mucking around and “spotting” Rinda, which I was doing way wrong much to the Haymakers disgust (apparently I’m supposed to stand behind her and help her or something) we left. With an amused smile on my dial, my jeans and boots marched on out... vowing never to march on in again. I think all the other gym users were hoping that too.
