An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Special Treadmill Edition)

I've been to the gym a few times recently. Just to dabble. I hate exercising. And I especially hate exercising in public. But apparently it's good for me. So whatever. 

I dare say that the gym has more potential than most other places on earth for awkward situations, save for public restrooms and doctors' offices. I think I could could write a dozen blog posts about awkward situations at the gym and a dozen more about all the weird people at the gym. 

(Seriously with the Gym People! Where do these personalities come from?)

(Now we're all wondering if we're "Gym People," aren't we?)

Behold the awkwardness:

When you're going a snail's pace on the treadmill next to someone who's going really fast, but you have your incline set at 10, and you wanna yell, "Yeah, I see you going all fast and stuff on your flat ground. Look at my incline! LOOK AT IT! I'm hiking, Fella! HIKING!"

When you're a dancer at heart, and you want your pace to match the beat of the music you're listening to, but you can't make it work, and you feel like crazy person.

But then...

When the beat matches your pace exactly, and something amazing is happening physically and musically, and you look around to see if anyone notices, but they have no clue… because ear buds…, and you're just left experiencing the magic alone while everyone carries on ignorantly.

When you have the overwhelming urge to treadmill dance, and it takes everything you've got to hold back, but you wonder what would happen if you tried one spin. Just. One. Spin...

When you start walking on a treadmill that has a lumpy belt, and you think, "Crap! This belt is lumpy!" but you don't want to do the walk of shame where you picked a bad machine and have to leave it for another one, so you just pretend you knew it was lumpy all along, and that you're okay with it. 

When the overstimulating TV's across the wall show the earthquake in Syria, the shooting in Michigan, the toxic train derailment in Ohio, and a lady in skunk costume playing "Let's Make a Deal."

When the beat drops on your playlist, and you MUST RUN, so you increase the speed only to discover a few minutes later that the "decrease speed" button on that machine doesn't work, so you're left running way past your physical limitations while you decide whether it would be safer to jump off the machine or push the stop button. 

When you weren't planning on running, but the music makes you do it, and you realize you don't have "the girls" properly secured, and you've put on a lot of extra weight since you last ran, so "the girls" are quite large.

When the Black-Eyed Peas sing, "Runnin' runnin' and runnin' runnin," and you're like, "Fergie! I can't! The "decrease speed" button doesn't work!" 

Me playing it safe after button incident

When you keep feeling a loose hair brush against your arm, so you swipe at it every thirty seconds and can never find it, but you don't give up for your entire workout!

When you're trying to wipe off your machine for the next person, and the motion sensor on the towel dispenser can't see you, but it can see everyone else so you have to ask another human to help you get a towel. 

When you go to the store after the gym, and you want everyone to notice your post-gym glow (because surely you lost thirty pounds), but you catch a glimpse of your reflection, and you look like you just crawled out of the dumpster behind Krispy Kreme.