So I go to the gym for two hours a day about 4-5 days a week. I've been going to my current gym for about 18 months now, and because I am a committed People Watcher and also egocentric, I have given many of the regulars little pet names, as though they are there performing impromptu theater for my express entertainment. There's Greyhound Woman, an elegant lady so unbelievably long and lithe that she has got to be a genetic mutant of some kind. There's GI Jane, a woman I'm pretty sure could knock me unconscious with one blow from her mighty fist. Others include Hot FBI Agent, The Chick Who Thinks I Look Like Annabeth Gish, The Ringer, Bosu Girl, The Bride, Clint Eastwood, and Kerchief Guy. There's also a man I have privately dubbed The Mystic. He is an elderly Indian gentleman with a shorn head and a nearly skeletal physique. I usually encounter him in the hot tub, where I take a post-workout soak and he engages in a mysterious 10 minute routine of head dunking and 90-degree turns. Today he spoke to me for the first time, and told me that I should learn to swim. And that I need to take yoga. He also advised belly dancing, an activity he greatly enjoys. He assured me that three months of belly dancing would tone my thighs and give me "the sexy walk." We chatted for a bit about belly dancing - which he and his concave stomach demonstrated - and then I had to excuse myself for a shower before fetching my kids from the child care room.
After my shower I pulled my clothes from my duffel bag and realized I had no pants. Or cell phone. So I wrapped myself in the towel and went back to the pool area to interrupt the lifeguard mid-conversation with a friend to see if I could use the phone. He asked if everything was okay. I glanced around surreptitiously and then, refusing to be cowed by a teenaged boy in swim trunks, I straightened my bare shoulders and loftily informed him that I had forgotten my pants. He stared at me for a moment while his buddy snickered a little. Then he loaned me his phone. I called my husband and, after he stopped laughing, he said he'd be right over.
Perhaps if I take belly dancing for three months, I will be happy to walk around pantsless.
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We are gym twins. I wore my workout clothes to school on Wednesday to be more efficient. After my workout I realized I had not brought a bra to wear under my teaching clothes. So I had to teach in sweaty workout clothes. Lovely for both myself and my students.
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