By Crackey, I made it. Every gym visit I have made my routine a little bit harder, and so far I like how I’m pacing myself out. I want to work hard enough to feel sore and accomplished, like I’ve used the hour well. What I don’t want is to spend three mornings a week in that primal-scream/I-want-to-die chrysalis agony those maniac trainers on The Biggest Loser suggest.
Today was a real treat, because those colorful geezers I overheard on my first day took up residence at the elliptical next to mine and started into their repartee:
“Who do you like in the game?”
“Right now I’m liking Green Bay.”
“You better stay away from me and Colleen. We’re from Pittsburgh.”
“Well I’m not picking this far out. That Rodgers could run out in practice and blow a knee, or go across the street and get hit by a car.”
“You see the way he tackled that Urlacher? If it were Favre playing, he wouldn’t have caught him.”
“You see that interception the other guy threw? How do you not see a guy that big in a white jersey on a green field?”
“Big as you.”
“How do you miss him?”
“You know they still play at that Soldier Field from when I was younger?”
“They didn’t build a new one?”
“I thought they built a new one but I guess they didn’t.”
“They built a new baseball team. I think that’s what they did. Shows what happens when I start thinking!”
I smiled and settled in, ready for this to go on for the rest of my workout and wishing for all the world that I had perfect conversational recall. And then two blonde ladies settled in on the other side of me, and one start blabbing in a frequency that neutralized the other conversation like white noise.
“He’s kind of like a Trekkie? Like, a little bit like a Trekkie? And he says, like, you’re looking to settle down and get married to someone and like, all that, and I’m like, because that’s what he does, you know?, like, I’ve learned that about him, he’ll like, say something about what I’m thinking? But it’s really about something that he’s thinking? Like, I think he really wants it to work? But I think he’s worried about, like, if it doesn’t, and so….”
I had the urge to tell them to stop their babbling so I could listen to these weird old men babble instead. But I thought that would probably just confuse everyone.