When In Rome

I have a friend who lives in a city. When I visit him, we do city stuff, including going to his incredibly bougie, and somewhat culty, health club, which likes to bill itself as a "life style".

I like going there because it's sort of like going to the movie theater after watching videos on your 13" laptop. It's an experience.

This place is multiple stories. A concierge checks you in, but only after you download their app. Immediately upon passing the concierge desk, you end up facing the doors to the the spa, the store, and the cafe. Once you pass those opportunities, you enter the lofty hallway which leads to the locker rooms.

The women's locker room has more square feet than my house. Its free beauty products are proprietary to the company. There is at least one trophy wife in view at all times, and her hair always looks great.

I'm used to working out in my garage pre-dawn, by myself. If I work out during the day, I might pull my rowing machine on my back deck that some previous owner poorly built, and watch my neighbors fight with each other over how to best feed their cows. I have a set of DeWalt wireless headphones that have a short in one side and are the classic DeWalt yellow. I get regular comments from blue collar workers about them. (The left side might not be as loud as the right, but the battery life is really good.) These are not gym-bro gear, but I can wear ear-pro over them. I will often reuse my work out clothes until laundry day or until they get particularly sweaty.

In this gym though, no one is wearing day old clothes. And the gym has their branding down. They make all sorts of cling wrapy clothes for their constituents to rep while showing off skin, bulges, or both. In the women's locker room, people thread their arms through various crisscrossing straps and snap Spandex shorts into place. Everything bears a gym logo or a Lululemon icon. Women spray on extra hairspray before their cardio sessions. I brought a tank top and some running shorts. It won't be until the end of the workout that I'll realize I put the tank top on inside-out.

Because my friend is male, and therefore not in the women's locker room with me, once I've got on my inside-out tank, I wander alone into the giant floor of machines. I look for my friend. He's told me he's upping his gym game. He pairs a face of total disinterest with a giant set of headphones. These headphones alert everyone around him that he is both cool and in the zone, and he does not have the capacity to engage with anything other than the flow of his workout.

His clothing game, though, could be better. He's wearing a shirt he got for free and some basketball shorts. The men surrounding me are wearing shirts so tight I can count the bumps on their areolas. They also all have on these mini shorts which are made of a fabric that looks incredibly expensive and moves with each step. I get transfixed watching the guy in front of me. His shorts swing in this mesmerizing way, and then I realize I just staring at his crotch. I rip my eyes away and mentally shake a fist at whoever designed those. But, I guess point to them. They know what they're doing.

I can't find my friend in the sea of swaying man bulges and elastic-wrapped women. My friend sends me a text.

Where are you?

I find some Airdyne bikes and decide I've found my workout. I adjust the seat and text him back.

I'm easy to spot. I'm the only woman without lip filler.

He responds, Ha.

I see him now, across the room walking like he just can't even with the rest of these jabronis. He's got the swagger, but again, his shirt leaves too much to the imagination so he doesn't really blend in. I toss my phone into the little cubby under the water bottle holder and begin a workout of sprint sets.

I've got my DeWalts in, and I'm doing fifteen sets of 30 second sprints with 90 seconds of less sprinty riding. I say this to demonstrate I'm doing something, and I've got obnoxiously bright wireless earbuds on, so the average person can assume, I'm probably listening to something.

A guy moseys to the Airdyne next to me. He's shaped like a 5'7" pit toilet with jelled hair that ends abruptly in a flat top. I put his age around forty-five, and while I haven't been to medical school, I have no doubt this guy's MD is concerned about his cardiac health.

He gets on the Airdyne. I'm still doing my sprints and recoveries and listening to my horror novel. I'm at the point where an apparent dimension-traveling vampire is about to steal the protagonist's kid. I'm not paying this guy any mind, and while I don't know how long he rode the Airdyne, what seems like moments after he sat down, he's suddenly standing next to me.

I'm now sprinting. The bad guy is trying to kill the protagonist with a bone hammer. The guy says,

"You're good at this."

I realize he's talking to me. I nod like a crazy person because there is no way that this guy is going to mess up my cardio workout, but I'm not sure how to get out of whatever this conversation is going to become without either getting off the bike or just being straight mean.

He tells me that the Airdyne is hard, but he already did forty-five minutes on the treadmill, so, you know, he was just using it to cool off, but he can tell, I'm a beast. I nod and say thank you and realize I am going to have to rewind my book.

He continues to talk to me, and I decide to just ride the Airdyne faster. He makes several more comments on my cardio, and I realize it's too bad Airdynes are stationary because it doesn't matter how fast I ride, I'm still being talked at by this porta potty of a man.

Finally though, he gets the hint. I've quit looking at him or responding in any way, and he leaves. I do not watch him go. I rewind my book and learn the bad vampire did steal the protagonist's son. Damn it.

Once my workout is done, my friend finds me. We end up near a machine that seems to just be a big plate that vibrates you. I stand on it for a while and it jiggles me so much the bottom of my feet go numb, and I can actually feel my eye balls rattling in my skull. I can't see straight while on the machine. I step off and look at my friend.

"You okay?" he asks.

I nod and manage, "We gotta go. If I stay here any longer I'm going to end up with a thigh gap and a boob job."

A woman with more silicon than organic tissue walks by us. My friend just nods.

We head down the palatial staircase to get back to the locker rooms. A woman in her seventies passes us. She's wearing a bright pink sports bra and high waisted Spandex shorts. She's talking to a personal trainer about supplements, and it's very obvious, she takes care of herself.

It's now I realize my shirt's on inside out. A woman who smells expensive passes me on her way up the stairs. Her friend laughs like she's being photographed for a magazine.

It is time for me to go. It's been fun, bougie health club, but I can't hang.

I made it out of town without any body modifications, but it's unknown what would have happened had I spent too much time on that vibrating plate.

I can't wait to touch danger and go back next time I'm in town.