Trippy treadmills and other tales of the gym

First off, in case any of you were wondering, I haven't caught that goddamn mouse yet. Mom hasn't come through with her bacon suggestion either. That might be the problem. But mousie has been laying real low of late--I am hoping that maybe he just moved out without saying good-bye.

So, I went to the gym today because apparently I was getting used to going regularly. It's been two weeks and my muscles were getting antsy. Really. It was like some weird, mild form of Restless Leg Syndrome or something.

Now, I attempted the treadmill for the first time and quite frankly, it was a little scary. I'm not a runner so I thought some fast walking (believe it or not, faster than I normally walk) would be good. It's hard getting used to walking on a conveyor belt, and super trippy getting off. I don't know if it was a combination of fatigue and hunger, but when I got off, the ground was coming up at me and I was a little unstable. Freaky. And no, I was not on hallucinogens.

But let me tell you about one of my especially disturbing gym experiences:

So I was at the gym and was already dressed and in the large room that is specifically for us ladies to dry our hair and put make-up on. It's always very empty. I'm drying my hair, minding my own business, and this older woman, very heavy, comes and stands RIGHT next to me. Now, I know the towels are small--they barely fit around me--but for some reason she thinks it's more necessary to cover her upper half rather than her bottom half. Seriously, I tried so hard not to look, but she was right next to me in front of a wall of mirrors. Oh, man! Her belly was so big that it kinda pooched over and hid all of her unmentionables. A friend of mine calls this "bubble crotch." Needless to say, it was a little traumatic.

And to wrap things up, one last story about my very first gym experience:

My gym, like most, has TVs attached to the cardio machines. The first time I went on one of them, I could not for the life of me get the damn TV to work. I thought perhaps it was some sick reward system and you have to exercise hard enough to get it to work. Kind like mice on a wheel. But then I saw some very old woman biking away slower than MadDog can peddle her trike and HER TV was working just fine. I was at a total loss and instead tried to inconspicuously watch the TV of the person next to me, with the voices in my head as accompaniment. Finally, a friend of mine explained that the TVs don't work unless you plug your headphones in. LAME.