7

You go to the gym (FIT) practically every day. Your life is so stimulating and action packed, you're afraid that if you don't, you won't be in the proper condition to meet life's real challenges head on.

Of course, since you go during the non-peak/prime-time hours, you are surrounded, generally, by the following types:

1) Middle-aged housewives (MAH) whose husbands are out working at some lucrative profession. These gals are usually in great shape, are pleasant, helpful, and friendly. Predominantly Anglo. 


2) Old retired dudes (ORD). To be avoided at all costs. Usually clueless about innovations made in athletic wear, they are still slogging about in twill overalls and long-sleeved long-john shirts. Many of them do not understand that exercise garments need to be washed on a regular basis, and they subsequently can be smelled from two rows of treadmills away. 

Also in this category is the ORD who decides to be hip by attending yoga or pilates or yogalates. Like his overall-sporting brethren, this ORD has not a clue as to what type of clothing is appropriate for his chosen activity. Unlike the fellas on the treadmill, however, this ORD opts for light, airy, short-shorts without leggings or much on underneath. What a cool customer! But pity the rest of the room, especially when Mr. Hi-I'm-A-Hep-Cat-Grandpa, decides to do his thigh stretches front row, center, and facing the mirror. 

3) Mystery People (MP). Who knows what the hell these folks are up to; you certainly don't. One goosenecked creature with a bizarrely erect posture, an unlikely looking pair of tits, and really defined legs, struts around looking like a Latina version of Foghorn Leghorn's girlfriend. Sometimes she works out wearing a heavy scarf or a fake fur hat. 

You comment on that one day and a woman you know says, "Oh. I think she's a dancer." 

"Oh," you sagely nod. "I guess it's a costume from the ballet."


"No, you nit," the woman says, "a dancer." She mock-gyrates on an imaginary pole. 


Now you get it. An exotic dancer. And why, you wonder, are they called exotic, anyway? What's so exotic about some babe sticking her snatch as close to some business guy's pie hole as humanly possible and still have him stuff her g-string with a wad of dirty ones? 


Wow. Next time you book a vacation, just bag the whole St. Barts deal and spend that two weeks over at Lipstick Gentlemen's Club on 146 just south of Kemah. They're both super exotic locales. 


Oh, yeah, and there are other MP's: a few upstanding looking fellas who maybe work in the health industry, maybe retail, maybe they own their own small businesses. Who knows? They're obviously not over with the drones at AIG, who march, en masse, over to the Subway on the corner of Allen Parkway and Waugh each day from noon to one p.m., weekdays. They're free! Free, dammit, to lift free weights and listen to Beyonce croon in an admonishing fashion to her not-so-wise single sisters about puttin' a ring on it. (Christ, after going to the official website for that one, you're wishin' someone would be puttin' a sock in it.)


BTW? An entire post can be devoted to how bad the music is in your gym, but you can't go there right now.


Some of the MPs, you know, are academic types, and since you know this, they are no longer MPs. The M stands for mystery, gosh darn it. 

4) The crowd that freaks you out the most, however, is that of the Personal Trainer (PT). At your club, you can usually spot them because they are wearing bright red FIT-logo athletic wear. There's no need to kid yourself, though. You'd be able to spot them anywhere. 


They are the super-creatures who are always freaking you out in one manner or another. One of them (who, you have found, is a perfectly affable creature), used to have you running for a towel the minute she stepped into the locker room, since you couldn't really tell, at first, whether this one was a man or a woman. You're thinking now that she's a woman, but only because other people have referred to her thusly. You yourself are not completely sold. 


Then there's the very dark skinned one with super high cheekbones, long straight hair that would give Chris Rock a conniption fit (Good Hair--must be seen to be believed), and thighs that she could probably wrap around an average man's chest and cut off his air supply. She's very unfriendly and seems to be quite self-possessed. Heck, with legs that could kick through a safe door, you'd have confidence, too. 


Recently, you happened to unpleasantly come across her and a Latina colleague in the locker room. The Latina, built much like a lil' Schwarzeneggerette, had on a green glitter-sequined thong bikini. The power-leg lady was mashing the Latina's tits around until they looked properly rounded in their teeny-sheeny-triangles. She then helped her oiled, buff, and bikini-clad mate into a pair of clear acrylic stiletto mules, and maneuvered her into various muscle-defining poses as she snapped photos. 


Really, you were so glad you got out of bed that day. You didn't think that people like that actually existed. 


The guy PTs, for whatever reason, don't seem as strange looking to you as the women. Maybe you're just more accustomed to seeing guys swagger around with their six packs bulging. But that doesn't seem to be it, really; the men, in general, at least at FIT, tend to wear fairly baggy clothes. A lot of them could probably be mistaken for plain ol' male gym-plebes. Come to think of it, some of the regular customers actually look like they're in better shape than some of the male PTs. 


But it's the women you're always looking at. Everything that's wrong with society seems to focus itself on these female trainers. Forget about the one you thought was a man invading the women's locker room. It's the plastic surgery victims that bother you the most, and there just don't seem to be as many of them that are male. 


Is it, you wonder, that the otherwise cute n' spunky PT with the botched lip job thought she'd attract more clients by having a juicier, plumper mouth with which to say, That's right, Louise! Just 14 more!  ??


Or, do you think, did the If Tinkerbell Was A Feminist And Could Kick Your Ass female PT (oh, and anybody can make one on this Disney link...), with her lean, angular build, cute spiked cut and matching togs, who now, with her overly-aggressive boob-job, looks like a couple of cantaloupe halves resting on a plank, decide that looking decidedly deformed was a good career move?


Bizarrely swollen body parts. Tanned androgynes. Glitter-clad chicks who can bench press an Oldsmobile. 


Looks like the circus, with all of its freaks, is permanently in town. 


You've noticed, however, that the tent showcasing this Tod Browning look must be perpetually packed, as most of these barnyard oddities seem to be driving Lexuses. Or is it Lexii?