Get off my treadmill! Act 2

Where were we? Oh yes, we ended Act1 (read it here if you missed it) with me on the verge of making an ass of myself.

I was a couple of miles into my run when I heard the door to the fitness center open. I quickly grabbed the remote and switched off the Will and Grace re-run that I was watching in favor of ESPN. Grrrrrr sports! In walked my little friend and I could tell that he was ready for another workout because he was still wearing his workout jeans. He spotted me on the treadmill and was visibly disappointed. After standing there watching me for a few seconds he looked at the other exercise equipment in the room, presumably to determine which would be best for some high intensity screwing around.

The elliptical was the winner, or perhaps the loser if you’re looking at it from the elliptical’s point of view. He climbed on and started exercising, constantly leaning over to get a look at how fast I was going and attempting to match my pace. I was smack in the middle of an interval and had the speed set at 8mph (don’t laugh, that’s interval speed for me). I immediately decided that I would keep going at that speed until he stopped and fortunately for me he was tuckered out after about a minute. At this point he turned on the TV in front of the elliptical and cranked the volume up until it was loud enough to drown out my TV.

Next he stood with both of his feet on one of the eliptical’s paddles and began rowing himself up and down like a piston, a chubby piston. At this point I was getting a little agitated. He was no longer watching the TV but still had the volume cranked up so I asked him if he’d mind turning off the TV if he wasn’t watching it. He turned and walked away from me, completely ignoring me as if he was my own child. It was just as annoying when he did it as it is when they do it.

At this point he was just trying to irritate me. He took the dumbbells off the rack and started spinning them around at arm’s length as fast as he could, then left them lying on the floor. He stood behind my treadmill and imitated me running. I know this because as with most fitness centers, this one had a large mirror in front of the treadmill. And that’s when I lost it. I don’t know why that kind of thing gets my blood boiling so quickly but it’s happened before. I hopped off the treadmill, turned to face him and yelled at him. Yelled at him, at a kid. I’m not even going to tell you what I said because I’m pretty ashamed of myself for having said it. It was a stupid thing to do and I’m not proud of it, but the kid left quickly so it was at least effective.

Moments later I was running on the treadmill again when the kid walked back in followed by his father. His big, angry father. You might have deduced this from my race pictures but I’m not exactly a big guy. I’m all of 5’5” soaking wet (and bone dry since being soaking wet doesn’t make you any taller). I was terrified that this guy was going to crush me and in my haste to get off the treadmill and face him I got crossed up and ended up falling like a sack of potatoes onto the moving surface where I was promptly ejected off the back. My right forearm was throbbing like it was broken and I don’t even know what I hit it on (it’s not broken by the way, I’m just a wuss). The kid’s dad moved towards me quickly and with my adrenaline rushing I was sure that he meant to harm me. With my left arm caught awkwardly underneath me and my right arm in pain I did the first thing that I could think of to protect myself; I lifted my foot up to fend off Gigantor, who was now looming over me. He immediately grabbed a hold of my ankle with his enormous paw and started pulling... pulling on my leg... just like I’m pulling yours! April Fool’s suckers! I can’t believe you didn’t see that coming. Or maybe you did, bully for you. Let this be a lesson to you not to believe anything you read today.