Momentary Time Machine

5:15 pm on a Tuesday evening in the locker room of the gym that I only belong to because (a0 it's close to work so I have no excuse to not go and (b) it's cheap.

But suddenly, I feel like I'm frantically trying change without being seen after fifth period gym class in my small town public middle school.

At least that's how I felt as I listened to the three women surrounding me cackle to each other about just about every other person in the place. Then they began to complain about how crowded it was (20 people) because "everybody skips on Monday so they feel guilty today." Um, hello? Until this week I was here every Monday and I've only ever seen one of you three here!"

When they noticed I was there they began to speak in code. I guess it would have been too hard to stand together and gossip quietly rather than spread across the entire locker room and yell to each other.

These were three grown women with cars and jobs and boyfriends and things talking and behaving like they were 14. It was sickening.

Other than the two or three people from work that also go there, I don't really know anyone at the gym. But I always try to smile and be friendly and carry on those trite conversations one tends to have in the gym locker room.

To me, these three were kind of breaking the spirit of the place. Sure, there are people at the gym that you think those thoughts of. My gym back in Kentucky was in the yuppy part of town and it was full of all sorts of characters. Like the women who "exercised" fully made up and wearing jewelery. And the trainer who only spoke to you if you were a pretty girl. And the big muscly guys who stood around and made a lot of noise and kind of looked at the really big free weights but never seemed to do much exercising. But you don't discuss them in the locker room. You go home and blog about them later.