>In Which I Go to the Gym and Lose My Fucking Mind

>I haven’t been to the gym in oh…. a while.

I mean, December was really busy. I was under a lot of pressure, okay? There was cookie baking and party throwing and present buying and gift wrapping and… and… well, let’s just say I felt really pressured by a certain someone to walk my ass off , and therefore I passively-aggressively didn’t. Yeah! It’s all her fault!

But today, there were no more excuses. The last bottle of wine had been drunk. The last New Year’s Eve cupcake (don’t ask) had been eaten. Hubs got home from work early and gave me a look that said it all. A cheeks-puffed, eyes-bulging look that let me know today was G-Day.

And yet, as we pulled into the parking lot of the Gym, I realized I had made a mistake. A big mistake.

“I can’t do it,” I said quietly while Hubs unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Come on,” Hubs prodded me. “We’re here.”

“No. It’s too embarrassing,” I insisted. “Everyone will laugh at me.”

“Yeah right,” he chuckled. “There are tons of people at the gym today who haven’t been there in a while.”

“You don’t understand,” I muttered darkly. Hubs gave me the look again. I sighed and opened the car door.

As we walked through the double doors of the gym, the guy behind the desk greeted us with a smile.

“Hey!” he said brightly. Then he did a doubletake. “Lucinda? Is that you?!”

I shook my head and quickly put up the hood on my jacket. But it was too late. He had picked up the phone.

I heard his voice crackle over the PA system. “World Gym members, let’s give a warm welcome to someone I haven’t seen here in a long, long, lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time…. Lucinda!”

The pulsing dance music stopped. The room grew silent as 50 heads turned in my direction. Then I heard it. Snickering. Giggling. Guffawing.

“I TOLD you!!!” I whispered through clenched teeth, grabbing for my husband’s arm beside me. I came up with air. Looking wildly around me, I caught sight of him darting toward the men’s locker room.

I was on my own.

“If y’all don’t mind, I’d like to work out in peace, thank you very much,” I said with as much bravado as I could muster.

Nervously, I got out my gym card and attempted to run it though the laser scanner. Nothing. Over and over, I waved my card in front of the laser’s eye. But it was no use.

“Um, that’s a security camera,” a woman at the counter said. “The card scanner’s over there. Have you been here before?”

“Sure I have,” I countered. “I’ve, I’ve been traveling the world and I uh, haven’t been here in a while. The scanner used to be over here.”

“Yeah. In 2003,” she said flatly.

I bit my lip, scanned my card and speed-walked to the Stair Masters. A sea of tanned, toned bodies parted in my wake.

I climbed up onto the machine, set the time to 30 minutes and started stepping. Surely the worst was over.

Scree… Scree…

What the hell was that? I stepped faster.

SCREE. SCREE. SCREE.

Something was wrong with my machine. Every time my feet made a cycle… Scree. Fucking scree.

I looked around. Every other machine was taken. Beside me, a middle-aged woman huffed away to her iPod, the sales tag on her sports bra bobbing up and down with every step. $9.99. On sale.

“Stupid newbies,” I said under my breath.

Scree. Scree. Scree. Scree.

Despite myself, a soundoff began to form in my mind.

Working out is hard to do…
Scree. Scree. Scree. Scree.
‘Specially when everybody’s thinner than you.
Scree. Scree. Scree. Scree.
I need to fucking lose this gut.
Scree. Scree. Scree. Scree.
So I won’t look like such a slut.
Scree. Scree. Scree. Scree.
Fuck you.
Scree. Scree.
Fuck me.
Scree. Scree.
Fuck you, fuck me..
SCREE-SCREE!

“How much time do you have left? God, that thing sounds horrible!”

It was Hubs, back from the weight machines.

“Huh? Uh, I have…” I looked down. Thirty-FIVE minutes? “Uh, I’m done, actually.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

As Hubs helped me down from my Stair Master, I heard a loud “Whoa! Whoa!” from the treadmills in the next aisle. A guy’s shoelace had gotten caught in the tread. Before we could react, he fell on his back and was whipped off the treadmill onto the floor.

Hubs and I leaned over the man as he lay there, groaning.

I laughed a little.

“What’s so funny?” Hubs asked.

“You were right,” I said, stepping carefully over the poor sucker on the floor. “There are lots of people who clearly haven’t been here in a while.”

Arm in arm, we sauntered out the door. Two former sluggards… back on the workout wagon.