Recently I started going to the gym.  I’ve never been one for exercising indoors, but when you live at 7,000 feet winter lasts a good seven months and by May you’re so sick of snow (and being cold) you want to bitch slap Mother Nature with an icicle.  Believe me, by mid spring it just doesn’t feel right to be outside jogging in weather that makes your nose hairs freeze.

Also by May you notice the effects of what I call “Fat Season” peaking out in the form of unsightly dimples on your thighs.  Fat Season encompasses the months in which you consume so many sweets and so much rich food you start to convince yourself that “junk” is a new food group.  Fat Season starts in October with Halloween, then continues through Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Ends with Mother’s Day, which is just about when you put on a pair of shorts for the first time in six months and realize your skin is even paler and lumpier than you remember it being last fall. And by the way, at what point during the winter did I suddenly acquire the belly of a spayed puma?  All I can say is thank God for turtlenecks that go all the way down to your knees. 

Even though I sound like I started hitting the gym to improve my health, the reality is I went because I had nothing else to do at 6:00 a.m.  You see, my teenage son has a zero hour class at his high school.  Since he can’t drive yet, and I don’t want him walking to school in the dark carrying an overloaded backpack and a variety of woodwinds, I have to get up and take him to school just before the sun rises.  And once I’m up, I can’t go back to sleep.  I tried writing during that time, but when I reviewed my work hours later I concluded that the side of my brain that produces crappy prose is an early riser while the creative side likes to sleep late.

Knowing this, I decided to work on my physical being instead.  So I went to the gym, parked my flabby behind on a stationary bike and just hoped that the contact of my flannel sweat pants with the naugahyde bike seat would cause some sort of chemical reaction that resulted in a firmer butt.  I mean, isn’t that how exercise works?  It’s been so long, I really don’t know.

But as suspected I soon got bored with the stationary bike and graduated to the elliptical, on which I also did a whole lot of moving without getting anywhere.  Honestly, what’s the point of exerting so much energy if you stay in the same spot?  I just don’t get it.  Yes, I know this equipment works your cardiovascular system, but what good is a healthy heart if you go insane from boredom?  Do we really need that many fit crazy people running around? At least on an outdoor hike there’s stuff to look at.  At the gym I’m just staring at the indoor tennis courts on the lower level, where I have to watch people having fun doing real exercise.

After a couple of weeks of this nonsense I decided to get off the human hamster wheel and hit the weight room instead.  Being there at 6:00 in the morning I figured I’d have the place all to myself and thus wouldn’t have to feel wimpy about using the small weights usually reserved for stroke victims and skinny eighth grade boys trying to move up a weight class on the wrestling team.

How wrong I was.

Apparently, six in the morning is the new happy hour for the bridge and tunnel crowd.  Gym rats of all sorts work out before heading off to the office, but in doing so they also strut around the facilities like a collection of peacocks in heat.  One guy drew attention to himself by grunting so much when he lifted his gargantuan, 50-lb weights that he sounded like he was either having a heart attack or taking a really big doo-doo.  Either way I didn’t want any part of it.

When I moved to the other side of the room I found myself next to a forty-something woman with an incredible body.  I won’t even say “for her age” because she was so firm she made Michael Phelps look like a flabby couch potato.  I swear to God that woman could crack walnuts between her butt cheeks.  Yet, every time she lifted her overloaded barbell, she let out a rather “climatic” moan usually reserved for the privacy of one’s own bedroom (or in my case when I step into a nice hot shower or eat a piece of savory dark chocolate).

Then there’s the geeky dude who’ll hit on anything, including a middle-aged mom who’s there only because she had to drop her kid off at school and has nothing better to do before her sixth grader gets up at 7:30.  (“Uh, no thanks.  I’ve already seen K.C. and the Sunshine Band in concert – twice.”)

Clearly, I’m out of my league if I want to go to the weight room at dawn.  They need a sign above the door that says, “You must be divorced or single to enter between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 a.m.”  Since I’m neither, I decided to come back later. 

But in the mean time, I drove around until I found an open Starbucks, where I ordered a double soy latte and a Heath Bar pastry.  I actually thought the sign said “Health Bar,” which is why I bought it.  Unfortunately, the cashier wouldn’t let me return the darn thing after I’d taken a bite.  I knew immediately I’d made a mistake.  Nothing that tasty could be healthy.  So I had to eat it – all 900 calories.  Oh well.  Fortunately, Fat Season isn’t officially over until the day after Mother’s Day.  Until then I’ll just wear my body-length turtleneck and avoid the gym at all costs.