Impoliteness at The Gym and One of These Days I'm Going to Go All Walter Sobchak

I love Planet Fitness for several reasons.  It's a no frills gym;  there are no classes; no medieval-looking pilates machines; meatheadedness is discouraged; and it emphasizes physical health and fitness over sculpting your physique.  The cost is a steal at 10 dollars a month for a regular membership and 20 dollars a month for a black card membership, which does have its perks.  The black card membership allows you to bring a guest for free every single day if you want to, and you have free access to the massage chairs and tanning.  I don't use the tanning bed, but I do use the massage chairs from time to time.  I do, however, abuse the guest privilege.  Brad goes with me to the gym every time I go.  Those little extras do make the black card membership for the additional 10 dollars. 



The 30 Minute Express Workout Room

My most favorite thing about Planet Fitness, above all else, is the 30 minute express exercise circuit.  It's cloistered in a partitioned area in the far back corner of the gym.  As the name suggests, it only takes 30 minutes to complete the circuit.  There are 10 weight machines and 10 steppers.  The weight machines are lined around the outer circumference of the area and the 10 steppers are arranged in a circle in the center of the area.  A stoplight is at the top of the ceiling, and when the light turns green you do however many reps you're capable of on one of the weight machines.  Then, when the light turns red, you stop doing reps and move to one of the steppers, and, when the light turns green, you start stepping to get some cardio in to burn calories and boost your heart rate until the light turns red.  Then, you move to the next weight machine and repeat.

There's a numerical order to this workout, but there are some assholes who come into this area and think they can be all willy nilly and move from any numbered machine to any other numbered machine.  I want to scream, "There's an order to this, turd.  Follow it before you're eating my tennis shoe leather."  They mess up the whole system, so there I am waiting and waiting and getting madder and madder.  I feel myself getting hotter and hotter, and, if I'm listening to some tough ass rap song or rock song, I'm feeling a lot tougher than I am in the real world so tough, in fact, that I might pick a fight.  Thankfully, I never do.

Just the other day, there was this woman who got on the stepper that was intended for me.  All she was doing was stepping all lah dee dah like.  She was playing at working out like a kid plays house.  Being a good citizen, I was going in order the way the directions instructed me to do so, and I had to adjust my order for her lah dee dah self.  There I was accommodating this out-of-order pain in my ass.  Let me not forget to mention those two buff-o-zoid guys who routinely come into the express workout room to use the weight machines at their leisure and order of their choice.  Never mind that I'm trying to go in the specified order.  Oh yea, and how about wiping down the weight machines next time, jerkwads, so I don't have to clean the ass checks sweat spot you left me on the weight machine's seat?  Follow the rules, people.  Am I the only one who follows the damn rules?  I feel like Walter Sobchak way too much these days.