Alright I confess, I do work out sometimes. I had no choice you know - you see, one day I was sitting down, I had grown a belly from lots of beer drinking and while trying to reach my shoelace to tie my shoes, I um - woke up an hour later slumped over my leg not knowing where I was with 2 pieces of string in my hand mumbling about a red car. That is from being so unfit! Bad eh! Long ago I use to run alot, I was fit. I had an elegant run. I ran in the parks, on the beaches, cross country, through the neighbourhoods, you get the idea. I don’t want to risk sounding like Forrest Gump and mention all the locations one can run, but those days I ran alot. Nothing on me wobbled, all was fresh and strong, but now, now I leave these potholes where my belly has encrusted the earth from a new jog I seem to have invented. It’s a sort of a hybrid of speed walking, trying and stop myself falling, and playing game of charades with lewd gestures - yep it’s horrible! So to speed up the getting fit process I joined a gym. I am pleased to let you know that I can now tie my shoelace without passing out. I just get mildly dizzy now. One day I will get to the point where I can run with old Pammie on the intro of Baywatch again.

Anyway, before I digress thinking of Pammie, lets get back to the gym story. I am rather enjoying the workouts now. My routine is a mish mash of cross trainer, where I work on it until I get this strange taste in the back of my throat as it burns. I then exhurt a rediculous determined expression while walking from machine to machine, growling and pumping some iron, finally I go for a stretch and stuff. After the session - it gets all weird. It’s the change room you see. Ok lets explain why. One day, my locker was unfortunatly right next to the mirror where the hair dryer happens to be. After the session I am sitting down, unpacking my bag, and this dude walks quite speedily to the mirror with not a care in the world and stark naked. It’s ok I guess as it is a change room, he grabs the hair dryer next to me and then, starts to blow dry his nads casualy. What the hell! Now there are like 20 people watching him do this. It draws attention you know, and who the hell hairdries his nads in front of 20 people anyway? The thing that freaked me out, and I only saw this on the account that concept of this strange behaviour had not sunk in yet, he cupped it. He cupped and lifted his package right up to get the hairdryer far under there, in that first second. He did this for five minutes, rubbing it with one hand and drying it with the other. He then moved on to dry his entire self, while I was standing right next to him getting changed. It lasted so long, why? He was still drying himself when I left, a towel would be much quicker and less freaky. That was just the one day. Then there is this other guy, who seems to sit right at the front door, also naked for long periods of time, longer than needs to be. He has this long hair, a sort of reddish color, and eyeballs people through the strands of his long fringe as it hangs in his face. It’s actually funny as anybody who enters the room gets greeted by this guy and jumps back from a fright. They then can not stop themselves from looking him up and down, and getting a pleasant surprise of um… well. I got the surprise myself, not fun. Then there is this other guy who, on a busy day, starts posing for the mirror! He is like the statue of David, I will give him credit but he also does this frickin naked. He squeezing all his muscles and holds this expression which is half a smile and the other looking like he is busting for the loo. He does not care if the whole place is packed and looks at him either, in fact I think it encourages him. What is it with all these naked people and being naked for unnecessary long periods of time.

Well I bet you are thinking, look the other way or why are you looking so intently, but it’s hard not looking at peculiar event. That’s like asking why do people rubber neck at the scene of an accident, maybe these events are just accidents of nature. I don’t mind the nakedness, people do have to shower and change but it’s weird nakedness I do mind. I dare you to go to the gym and pretend all is ok when it’s a bit like the twilight zone. The hair dryer is ominously buzzing right next to you, actually would you use the hairdryer afterwards?

The gym is cheap so I do continue to use it, plus it provides rather funny scenarios. Also I don’t want a perculiar event of waking up slumped over my leg again, an hour later with my shoelaces in my hand. There hasn’t been more incidents since, but will let you know if there are more.