Saturday Morning at the Y

When it comes to exercise, just give me a pair of sneakers and the great outdoors and leave me alone. I don't want to hear anything but the wind, the birds and the lawnmowers or snow blowers, depending. So going indoors to a crowded gym is something I do grudgingly when it's too cold or rainy to enjoy being outside. Today was such a day, and I found myself at the local Y, my peace of mind sacrificed for a pound of flesh--or so I hoped. The treadmills are located directly opposite a glass wall overlooking a woodsy nature scene. That would be nice, but since the indoor track separates the row of machines from the great beyond, my time was spent trying not to be distracted by the passing parade, an all but impossible task since it passed frequently on the quarter-mile track.

First came a dead ringer for Colonel Sanders, goatee and all. Clutching an antique Walkman, he walked soberly in time to what was surely military music, perhaps a Sousa march. Right behind him was a gaggle of teenage girls, two fat and two thin. Walking four abreast like they were the only people on the planet, the Giggling Gaggle seemed oblivious to the fact that they were not in a shopping mall but an exercise facility. One of them spent the whole time on her iPhone, texting and showing her friends pictures. Behind them and struggling to get past was a young boy with his mother, both of whom looked just like storks--the kind that deliver babies on all those signs. Stork Boy was trying to get mom to go faster, with little luck. Eventually the space between them widened until Stork Boy came up behind her, which seemed to piss her off.

These folks kept me completely entertained for about ten minutes, until a paunchy guy in a screaming orange t-shirt showed up. His huge pot belly seemed to be pulling him around the track, as if it were filled with propellant. He was good for comic relief. Another newcomer was Super Jock, wearing shorts and a hoodie and with a whistle dangling from around his neck, like he was in the friggin' Marine Corps Marathon. He ran rings around everyone else, whizzing by every few seconds like something in a Road Runner cartoon. Once he all but knocked down Colonel Sanders, who glared disapprovingly but regained his composure and kept on marching.

Eventually the Giggling Gaggle broke up into two groups when the thin ones started running, leaving the other two  chatting up a storm and apparently texting one another. Then a 50-ish woman with long blonde hair and torpedo breasts ran by, all business. Ex-Babe had the grim determination of Suzanne Somers to not get any older. She seemed to be in direct competition with Super Jock; in fact, he started to check her out as he passed by her, and I wondered if the two might meet up later and go for coffee.

Suddenly, after burning 192 calories, my time was up. But wait, I'm not ready! (That was almost as much fun as when I watched the O.J. Simpson white van drama unfold on TV from a Nautilus machine, back in the day.)