How to Lose Friends in a 24 Hour Fitness

This is a post is about a situation I found myself in today. Please stop reading now if you love old people, because I may throw around some disparaging words at their expense tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I fully support AARP, pay into Social Security, and call my grandma on her birthday. I also know that my elders are supposed to be ripe with wisdom, ready to enlighten the generations that come after them. And most days, I’m all for this. But today is not that day. In fact, today is the day that old people take the Jello-mold Bundt cake for being generally obnoxious in my life. Specifically, the nutty old man at 24 Hour Fitness. He is likely hovering around 75-years-old and clad in royal blue spandex and the thinnest white tank top you ever did see.

Let me set the scene for you: I am upstairs next to the free weights rack stretching outside of one of the rooms that the gym holds classes in (classes like Zumba, Step, Yoga, Pilates, etc.). Let me repeat for clarity’s sake that ALL I AM DOING IS STRETCHING. I’m not lifting weights, I’m not using a machine, I’m not jump roping, and no there is no balance ball in sight. I am simply stretching after my run minding my own business. I’m likely 5 feet from the entrance of the room a Step class is going on in. I am bending over stretching my hamstrings and all of a sudden I see a stranger’s face. Not just a stranger’s face, a creepy/wrinkly old man face!

Then, to make matters even worse I hear a voice that says, “Excuse me, Miss?” I am startled and jump a little bit, but I figure, hey look at this very old grandpa of a man, I’m sure he just has a question about where he can find a defibrillator or a vending machine that dispenses Ensure, so I smile at him and ask how I can be of assistance.

This...was a huge mistake.

“Well, you should never stand so close to a door way,” Grandpa said, “because it’s very dangerous and people could come along and smack you in the head with the door.”

Libby’s Inner Dialogue: Oh…Ok…well, that’s really not very likely, sir.

“I mean, this club could get fined by the Fire Marshall for having something blocking the entrance…” he continues to lecture me.

Libby’s Inner Dialogue: Um…really? I mean I know I’m not the tiniest person in the world, but I really don’t think that I could ever be considered a hazard or an object blocking an entire exit. And furthermore, couldn’t I just TAKE 3 STEPS TO THE LEFT if there was a sudden fire, flood, or some other disaster that would warrant a mass evacuation of 24 Hour Fitness?

But he was incessant…

“You should really know better, you are putting your life in danger, or your child’s life…” he said, so close to me I could smell is old person stench covered in Step Class sweat.

This was where he crossed a line and I nearly lost my shit right there next to the rowing machine.

Libby’s Inner Dialogue: Uh…excuse me, ya geezer, but did you just tell me that I am endangering the life of my unborn child?! Two reasons I am offended:

1) He just insinuated that I am an unfit parent. Though this assertion might be true I find it ludicrous that he thinks I would actually put my baby, IF I EVEN HAD ONE, on the floor so it he could whapped by people, doors, or anything else.

2) I consider Mr. Rogers an asshole for saying I look like I could have a kid AT ALL.

After these comments I just stare at him….

“Ok, thanks for the heads up,” I said.

He stared back at me, looking completely unsatisfied by my lackluster response. He shook his head, pivoted on his left heel and walked back into his Step class, which had been going on without him for the last 5 minutes while he has this conversation with me. What the hell did he expect me response to be, anyway? Did he want me to create a PSA about the dangers of stretching too close to a doorway? Give me a break (and not of a Kit Kat bar).

Normally I don’t talk back to people in situations such as this, but I was so enraged that he even had the gall to come out and lecture me in the first place. It was the most ridiculous, senile thing that has ever happened to me in 24 Hour Fitness. After he went back inside to his step class on his high horse, I took 2 steps forward, closer to the doors, and did a few more stretches. The whole time looking right in his royal-blue-spandex-covered-saggy-old-man-ass direction.

Revenge. Is. Sweet.