Fitness Room

It's been awhile since I've been able to drive my daughter to school then on to the YMCA for an early morning workout. There are a couple of reasons that I like the early workouts, I get sweaty first thing in the morning so I only take one shower and secondly the fitness room isn't crowded.

The average age in the workout room is sixty and they make me feel like I'm really in shape and looking good. About an hour into my workout, the college kids show up and they are usually rock hard and have all the right clothing and then I begin to feel like a middle age, overweight, out-of-shape mother!

I was so excited to swipe my card and say good morning to the front desk lady. I wondered if she had noticed that I had missed a couple of months. I was hoping that she'd say, "Good Morning Sheryl, welcome back."

The card swiper just swiped my card and buzzed me in and didn't even act like she recognized me from the past.

I walked the long hall to the locker room. As I walked in, I said silently, "Hello locker room, did you miss me? I've missed you." The locker room didn't change, it just sat there as if I had been there yesterday.

I left the locker room and made my way to the fitness area and opened the door and it welcomed me as if I were good friends. I grabbed a fresh warm towel, smelled it and breathed out and said to myself, "Oh you smell good, glad to smell you today." Then I found my elliptycal machine and began my workout. As I pushed 'quickstart' I said to the machine, "Hello my dear machine friend, how have you been? Have you missed me? I've missed you. It's good to be back."

I had already decided I was only going to exercise for thirty-five minutes. I plugged in my headset and began watching the morning news and began mindless moving. About ten minutes later, I decided I could probably continue with the machine for about forty-five minutes.

As I was stepping and moving my arms, I began looking around the room and critiquing the other people also enjoying the machines.

On the stair climber was a man that I have been seeing for a year now and he is about sixty pounds lighter. When I first saw him over a year ago, he would very slowly waddle to the bicycle, fall into the seat and barely pedal for thirty minutes and sweat like he was Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. "Poor guy." I would say to myself. "Good thing he's here. I wonder if he's recently had a heart attack because he sure looks like he's doing some kind of cardiac rehab."

Then I looked over at the weight machines and there he was, the German Baptist in his gray sweat pants and plain white t-shirt. How did I know he is German Baptist?...his beard. As I watched him lift each dumb bell and breath in and breath out, I wondered to myself if it was against his religion to wear gray sweat pants and a plain white t-shirt and be at the Y. Then I began to wonder about the German Baptist women and if they were allowed to workout and if so, do they have to wear their bonnet the whole time and if it would stink from the sweat.

I heard some breathing...and I looked right and there he was; the Chinese man that walks on the treadmill slow. As he slowly walks he breaths in and breaths out very loudly with his two pound hand weights. His breathing is very methodical as if he's saying, "wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off...."

I looked at my time and I was already twenty-five minutes into the routine. Then a man I'd never seen before came in. He was thin and had on white long underwear, with denim painter shorts over them, red tube socks, black Converse shoes and a gray long sleeved sweat shirt. As I watched him walk across the room to the treadmill I wondered if he was dressed that way because he was cold.

I hadn't really notice until that very moment that the lady to my left was going about a hundred miles an hour on her elliptycal machine. The only reason I noticed she was there and moving fast was because she stopped abruptly. About that time she pulled her shirt off and worked out in her swimming suit! This Asian lady has absolutely no curves and is rock hard! She was dripping wet with sweat. She finished in her swim suit and walked over to the weights and began bench pressing. I watched her lift weights and I thought to myself, "I'd like to look like her."

I looked down and I had already burned up my forty-five minutes that I had committed to and only had seven minutes left and I would have worked out for an hour. It was a nice feeling to know that I had managed to people watch for almost an hour.

Then a curvy, short lady walked into the room and stepped onto the treadmill. I thought to myself, "Wow, what a cute lady, she has a bubble butt and small waist, I'd like to look like her."

Not far behind her came a lady about my age and she was tall, thin and well proportioned and I thought to myself, "She's pretty, I'd like to look like her."

Then a fat lady about fifteen years younger than me came in wearing think gray sweat pants and a big baggy sweatshirt. I recognized that lady, that was me right after I gave birth. I was trying to cover up the fat and be comfortable at the same time. It didn't work, I just looked fatter and sloppy. Maybe by wearing those clothes, she had decided that she was going to not only burn some calories, she was going to sweat some pounds off too. "Good for her." I thought to myself.

My machine stopped and I decided I wasn't finished exercising.

I cleaned my machine and was looking around for another workout option. I chose the bike.

I went over and adjusted the seat and began. As I was pedalling away, a very tall man got on the bike beside me and said, "Hello, it's been awhile since I've been here. First I had a cold and couldn't come. Just when I was better, I got the flu. After I got over the flu, I got it again. I'm all better and now I'm back. It's good to be back. Hello."

I smiled at the man and said, "Hello, it is good to see you and I'm glad you're back."

I said to him, the very words I wanted to be said to me.

Beige

My heart is always in the right place. But somehow I keep meeting up with people who feel very comfortable showing me their real colors. Lately, I begin nearly every conversation with this phrase, "I'm going to hell..." then I launch into a story that I should probably keep to myself. But on the other hand, if I kept it to myself I couldn't share my amusement. I would only be chuckling inside my head and I would appear to be the weird one.
I rep for a counter top fabricator. Interesting. Who knew that I would end up telling people the pros and cons of the four different materials for counter tops; laminate, solid surface, quartz and granite? About twenty percent of our customers are the general public. Somehow, they find us and call on our little manufacturing facility to make their counter top.
One lady that lives about ninety minutes away from our showroom, called our facility and wanted to discuss her counter top color choice over the phone. Our office manager, who knows the name of every product sample, worked with this lady for over an hour. But this woman just couldn't make her decision over the phone. She needed someone to come to her house with a boat load of samples and help her choose a color that wouldn't clash with her walls. After all she has a very unique wall color, cherry cabinets, and black appliances. The countertop color has to be the perfect color to bring everything together, so nothing will clash!
I understand that, it is a big decision and one doesn't want to make the wrong one. But I'm not an interior decorator, I am a salesperson. Who else from a counter top fabricator should go to a person's home and give decorating advice. The only outside salesperson, that's who!
I mapquested her address, took a limited amount of samples...in hopes of making the decision easier due to the lack of choices and made my way through the snow to her home.
When I was about ten minutes away from her home, I realized that I was going to be early for our appointment. So I stopped off at a Wendy's restaurant. I ordered, found a table and sat down. Just as I sat down I saw an elderly gentleman that looked like he was wearing Depends. One can tell, because their trousers fit differently. The man and I made eye contact and I thought to myself, "don't make eye contact, he'll probably want to sit with you." So I quickly glanced away. He sat at a table across from me and began laughing out loud! Then he started talking to the empty chair across from him and making gestures and chuckling as if his best friend had just shown up! I said to God, "Please God, I know you get great pleasure out of planting odd people near me, but let this be the one and only weird person I meet up with today." God answered that prayer, but not the way I wanted him to!
When I arrived at the ladies house she answered the door and to my surprise she was in her mid sixties. She had shoulder length bleach blonde hair, a face full of makeup, big rhinestone circle earrings, a black zip up sweater with rhinestones around the neckline and on the zipper pull, black stretchy corduroy slacks that she had stuffed in a pair of black cowboy boots and a black rhinestone belt to pull the outfit together. She was wearing a big black beaded ring on one hand and a fake five carat diamond on the other hand.
Carol was so happy to see me. She beckoned me to hurry and come in and she scurried me to her basement kitchen. As we were walking down the steps she proceeded to tell me that she is babysitting for her three year old granddaughter and wanted to know if I was ok with that. Of course I was, what if I wasn't?!
We went to the basement and the only lighting she had was a lamp across the room and the Christmas tree.
I opened my samples and explained to her that the lady that helped her on the phone had suggested two colors a nice Kona brown or Starry Night. Both of these choices, top designers were choosing more and more.
Carol glanced at those two colors and said, "Oh no, they will clash with my wall color!"
I looked at her walls and they are "beige".
I said, "So what color are you planning on painting the walls, do you have a paint sample?"
Carol said, "Oh we just painted this basement and we are never painting it again!"
"Oh, I like the beige. Good color choice." I said.
Carol proceeded to look through my samples and found two different versions of beige and started holding it up to the walls, cabinets and appliances and said, "I don't think this particular one will match because the wall and the counter top is not exactly the same."
"Well that's why the company put so many different particles in the piece, so it'll match with anything. But why not choose a color that would enhance your beige walls?" I inquired.
Carol said, "The walls aren't beige, they are almond wisp."
"Ok, almond walls." I said.
Carol proceeded to pull out every version of beige sample and hold them up to her "almond wisp" walls. Then she said, "I just can't have the counter top and the walls clashing and so the counter top has to be the same exact color."
I said, "The beauty of "Almond Wisp" it goes with everything. You made a great choice in wall color."
About that time her granddaughter, Emily, came down the steps and Carol stopped everything she was doing and started a little rhythm dance and began singing, "Eeeeeemmmmiiiiillleeeee....oh, oh Eeeeeemmmmiiiiillleeeee..." She kept repeating this verse over and over again and dancing throughout the dark basement. Emily ran and hid!
Carol found her and begged her to say hello to me. She kept saying, "Emily say hi to Sheryl..."
Emily wouldn't. I stood there smiling and then I said, "Hi Emily how are you?"
Then Carol began her "Eeeeeemmmmiiiiillleeee..." song and dance again!
After the dance, looking at her beige and white china, (she didn't want her dishes clashing on the counter top either) and another hour and a half of comparing all of the beige samples. I handed her her four favorite beige samples and left.
As I was leaving, she handed me her Almond Wisp paint chip and asked me to ask ten people which beige counter top would match the best.
I said I would.
When I drove away, I wondered how a lady whose appearance and dress was so outlandish could be so conservative in her decorating.
As of this writing she has narrowed her choice down to two different beige counter tops.