Romance at the Gym

Now I know what you're thinking..."Romance at the gym, eh? Aren't you married?" Yes, and quite happily at that. Which is why I find romance at the gym so gosh darn amusing!

I forgot to charge my iPod last night, so I was sans music for my early morning workout. And a good thing that turned out to be. Now, as I recount this tale of budding romance keep in mind that it's 6:15 AM. AM. "AM" as in "before most people are awake" AM.

So, there I am...happily walking along on the treadmill to warm up for my killer (HA!) upper body workout, watching the local news channel with atrocious closed captioning ("Te weher wl be 605 drges a7DBy patly cpulhy" - HUH!???!), and plotting my plan of attack on the upper body machines when along comes...Tra la la la! Mr. Yellow Shoes Romeo! (The shoe colors of all persons involved have been changed to protect their identity.) He had escaped from the Testosterone Zone, I think.

I noticed that he was sort of peeking at the left hands of all of the female treadmill aficionados as he chose, and quite carefully I might add, his machine of "Wait until I show you how in shape I am as I run really fast on this treadmill!" So, he swaggered on up onto the treadmill, adjusted his ripped at the sleeves and cut (with apparently dull scissors) at the midriff tank top, flexed his not so defined (also can be read as "flabby as heck - oh, my gosh, did you just have a baby muscles) muscles, and gave the poor, poor woman on the treadmill next to him a "Hey, how you doin'?" See what I would have missed had I charged my iPod last night? Fate was truly on my side.

"Looks like it's gonna be a nice weekend. Got big plans?" says Romeo who is now walking at...I kid you not, a 2mph pace.

"Not really," says poor, poor woman on the treadmill next to him....who is running at a 5mph pace. Keep running, honey, but you can't escape him...you're on a treadmill.

"Yeah, me neither. I remember I got engaged this weekend in 1998. Didn't work out though. She was busy with grad school, I was working....just didn't work out." He's now walking at a 2.5mph pace.

"Oh."

"Yeah, she never was a morning person. Looks like you are. I am too. Do you work out every morning at this time?" He does his little neck rolls...well, assuming he had a neck...it was hard to tell...his head just seemed to be plopped onto his shoulders.

"No." (That was actually a tiny fib on Poor, Poor treadmill woman's part, because I see here there every morning at the same time. Don't worry though, I won't tell Yellow Shoes.)

"Oh. Well, yeah, it feels good to workout first thing in the morning though, doesn't it?" No pause for a breath. "It's good to gauge how hard your working out by how much you can talk. Don't you think?" Keep in mind he's still only walking at 2.5 mph.

"No."

"Yeah, me neither. Well, this was a good workout. See you around?" A good workout? At 2.5 mph for 5 minutes? Man, I want the workout guidelines he has!

"Doubtful." She muttered it. He was already gone and waving to her on his journey back to the Testosterone Zone.

Ah....budding romance. It's worth the gym membership just to see how this one progresses.