Gym Rats

I was working out in a gym that I've never seen before. All the machines were filled up except one bicep machine, so I started cranking out some reps on that using the lowest setting. I had it as my goal to do 1000 reps on this one machine, so I figured that I needed to warm up first.

The wierd thing about this machine is that in order to choose the lightest setting, you had to put the pin into the weights at the bottom of the stack. The higher you went up the stack, the more weight was applied.

Anyway, so I got through a few reps and I had to get up from the machine. I forget why, but when I came back to it, the machine was gone. In fact, most of them were. I jumped on one of the leg machines before it disappeared and began using it.

Two guys, employees of the gym, were off to the side on their own respective machines. They had their backs to the wall, and were working out watching everyone. Soon enough, I was one of three people left in the gym. When the numbers got to be that small, they began telling people stories, and give instructions on how to best use the equipment. I just kept doing what I was doing, because none of it was addressed to me.

A young couple walked into the gym, and they began holding their own conversation. The gym employees noticed that the couple wasn't paying attention to them, and so decided to draw their attention to themselves. They began talking over all other conversations. It wasn't like they were particularly boring to listen to -- it was simply their time to talk. When the people in the gym listened to them, they were entertained and educated.

Among other things, one of the guys was telling a story about how he grew up in Arizona and how Halloween was a dusty evening. It was so dusty that ghosts were almost always brown by the end of the evening.

Walmart's a gym?!

I drove over to the gym to get some exercise as is my wont. When I parked, the building looked entirely different, much like a WalMart, instead of Lifetime Fitness. I was a little surprised to say the least, but no matter. Walmart has fitness equipment, so I'd just use that. Oddly enough, I didn't have to look for it, I found it quickly. Dave Kelly was there, too, and had taken up a career as a professional bodybuilder, but hadn't gotten very far yet, since he didn't look much bigger than the last time I saw him.

Well, there was also some guy whom I don't know. He was rather imbalanced in that he spent a lot of time working on his upper body, but his lower body was fairly scrawny. He was benching some 300 pounds to warm up with, but having trouble with leg curls exceeding 100 pounds. Anyway, he was giving Dave some advice on how to build up his upper body.

I then remembered that I had a second membership to a different gym (based loosely on what I'm considering in reality): I think it was Gold's Gym. Anyway, I went over there and did my workout, but then I went back to the first one to buy some stuff. All hell had broken loose: the equipment was being moved all over the place, the employees weren't sure if they were personal trainers, sales associates or cashiers, and all the customers (except me) were acting like children.

How did things get so bad? I went outside to move my car, in case the mayhem spread out to where the vehicles were. It had started snowing...

Anyway, so I moved my car to the opposite end of the parking lot, the furthest point away from the store, and went back inside. Once there, I managed to get through the store and find what I was looking for, and get in line to purchase it. But then something happened that prevented me from making the purchase. I don't recall what it was, so it must have been something insignificant. In any case, I woke up shortly thereafter...