"Here at Globo Gym we're better than you, and we know it"

So I started going to the gym in the mornings now instead of the afternoon.  I find that going after work is such a pain in the ass after a long day in the office.  All I want to do when I get off is go home, put on my pajamas, most likely do a pile of dishes, and then cuddle up on the couch with my cats, is that so wrong?  Plus when I go in the morning, it helps wake me up, gives me the incentive to go to bed earlier, and quite frankly I just like it better.  The gym is much less crowded in the morning too.

The only problem I have with my morning gym routine is the town gossipers that invade the place every morning.  Several elderly women, a middle aged woman who looks like Carrie Fisher circa 1991 who is a complete nutcase, and a few elderly men.  I have become quite accustom to this morning crowd, and learned to drown out their constant rants with my Ipod.  I believe that "Carrie" is an obsessive compulsive exerciser.  She is there every morning when I get there at 7:50, already drenched in sweat, and vigorously power walking at an alarming rate of speed.  After about 20 minutes she gets off, puts her foot weights on, and starts pumping iron.  She's quite a gangly one.  There's no depth or definition in her muscles as far as I can see, it's quite strange. You'd think from all that iron pumping and dynamic cardio she'd be ripped like a washboard but she isn't.  Her and one of the elderly men are constantly yapping during their workouts. I heard her one day (over my Ipod I might add) telling him, "Yeah! Can you believe it! My daughter goes away to college and suddenly wants to be in a Jewish sorority house! I'll tell you what!..." Of course, this only led to a heated debate over religion and discipline.  All the other old woman chime in, "Well in MY day!..." All the while, these screech monkeys are taking up all the treadmills, squawking back and forth to each other. Defeated by the unusual onslaught of old people every morning, I am forced to use the ellipticals.

Yesterday morning, I was doing one of my normal routines, starting on the elliptical, moving to the stair stepper, and onto the arm presses.  There was an abnormality in the gym yesterday morning, as there was a new guy there. He was roughly 5' foot tall, resembling that of a pinched off loaf, sporting a sleeveless tee, black gym shorts, work boots, glasses, and a large back support belt.  He wandering from machine to machine holding an 'O-Men' magazine and grinning strangely at everyone who would go within a 5 foot radius of him.  Since he seemingly was guarding all of the arm presses, I went to the ab machine. As I'm using the machine behind him, enjoying some Primus on my Ipod, he's using one of the 3 arm presses (sorry, I do not know any of the actual titles of these machines, forgive me).  The one he was using is the one where you sit down, and push the handles forward. For some reason, he decides to dramatically let go of the handles.  I guess he was done using them and wanted everyone to know.  The 7003849 pounds he was pressing went crashing to the floor with a deafening clang.  Like I said, I had Primus blaring my ears, so the sound was considerably muffled, but it was definitely loud enough to scare the bejesus outta all the old folk on the row on treadmills. Quite startled, they all stopped squawking long enough to turn around and gape at him awkwardly for a few seconds before resuming to their gossiping. He got up and went stomping around the gym like an incredible asshole, checked himself out in the mirror and started working on another machine that was too close to me for comfort.  I got up and started on one of the arm machines, that was next to the previous one he'd just been using.  Not only did he not wipe down the machine he was sweating all over, but he left his O-Men magazine laying in front of the machine, displaying a whole 2 pages of lubed up steroid ragers like himself.  I had not even gotten one lift in (this was the one you push upwards), and he was already careening around the corner from the back of the gym and walking right up to me.  I quickly looked at the floor and pretended I didn't see him coming, but he just stood there. I finally looked up at him, Primus still blasting, and he said to me, "Let me know when you are done with that"...I read his steroid lips, but I knew he what he said.  What the hell man?  This is not your personal gym where you can leave your secretly gay magazines laying all over and question people trying to use the machines you may potentially want to use in the future. You also aren't wiping the steroid sweat off the machines! I was pissed. I pulled out my earbud and said, "Why don't you wipe the other machine down first and we'll see."  Which is what I should have actually said, but what I really said was, "Yep."  I didn't tell him though. I just got up and left. That'll show him.

Current weight loss: Fluxuating between 23/26

Pant size dropped: 2

New Goal: Drop 20-25 more pounds by the time we go to Florida, March 19.