It’s a bleak day in paradise...

Cold and overcast, today is the third consecutive day of no golf – a first since April – and a return to, aaargh, the gym. Sure, last winter’s gym schedule paid off in flexibility, strength and all that other crap that gym people are obsessed with, but time on the golf course completely trumps gym time as a far superior, socially unredeeming activity. And gym time stridently announces the onset of winter. Bummer, indeed.

I use the fitness room at the local Y. The facility is decent and the staff is friendly, but there are neither facilities nor staff anywhere to compensate for the frightening visions faced when working out at a gym.

The first hurdle is the locker room. Regardless of the locker I choose, some gnarly old dude or soaking wet sasquatch will exit the shower, hang (literally) in front of the next-door locker, and finish drying his junk while I’m tying my shoes. That’s barely (no pun intended) the worst of it. The visual insults are far from finished. 

Enter any workout room in America and you will be transported to Halloween Central. Selecting the appropriate costume, apparently while dropping LSD, is an essential ingredient for successful exercise. Take a look around and you’ll see the ‘Compressionites’, clad head to toe in skin tight compression gear – rumored but not proven to speed up healing for the overly zealous iron-pumper and the excessively fashion conscious - and the ‘Spandexers’, also sporting form fitting clothing, regardless of the form being fitted. Even a quick glance at one of these exhibitionists provides far more information than you will ever care to know.

Equally disturbing are the Casual Carls and Cathys – wearing old, worn, way-beyond-loose clothing seeing some gym time before merciful delegation to the ragbag. Unintended consequences? Every time a Carl or Cathy stretches or bends, body parts best left unseen fall out or pop up into full view.

Add in the bull moose bellows of the workout grunters and the over-ripe aroma of sweat and disinfectant permeating every corner of the gym for a really nasty odiferous cocktail … my next workout is going to involve coffee and donuts.

V.