As is true of most mornings, I pulled up to Planet Fitness at 6:15
today. But uncharacteristically, I was able to park right in front of
the main door. Inside it was a ghost town, only two other people were
there. I guess some had forgotten to change their clocks and Sunday
mornings are light traffic anyway. Which was fine with me. So I
picked an elliptical machine right in the front row under a bank of
seven flat screen TVs hanging just above. With all those channels to
choose from, I can almost always find something interesting to make
30 minutes go by quickly. But not this morning. Of the seven stations
available, Chuck Norris was advertizing his Total Gym on one of them
and I wasn't in the mood to look at his hair, that awful dye job, and
listen to him jabber. Another fitness show ran on channel 3. That
guru wanted me to buy little plastic containers that are color coded
to help me learn how to eat correctly. All I have to do is put the
protein in the red plastic, the veggies in the green one, and so on.
It's portion control for idiots. Oh, and I have to follow the workout
on the two CD's that come with it. (The CD's alone are a $195.00
value!) The price for a few colored plastic containers and two CD's?
Only three easy payments of $19.95. The profit margin they make on
each sale is huge. No thanks, I still had five other channels to pick
from. Oh shit, it's Sunday morning and all five are church stuff.
There's a black preacher dancing and shouting as he wipes the sweat
from his face with the small white towel that seems to be permanently
sewn to the palm of his right hand. No thanks. A white lady was
yelling on channel 9. I wasn't listening to the sound on any of
these, just watching her get red in the face and yell. I had to pass.
The last one I looked at before turning it all off and the music on,
was the best. A middle age white guy, way too heavy for the red light
special Kmart suit he was bulging out of while pointing at me, angry
and spitting. An obvious douche. But there were thousands of people
in the audience wearing suits and dresses, paying rapt attention to
the fat angry guy. They were getting to me. How lame must you be to
sit and listen to this blowhard yell at you or to even assume that he
has anything to say that had would make it worth the unpleasantness?
Pretty fucking lame. I was disgusted with myself for being a member
of the human race, preferring to emulate and learn from just about
any dog I had ever met over that charlatan.
So I turned it all off and the radio on. The beginning notes of Derek
and The Dominoes “Layla” started playing. It was nothing short
of a true epiphany as I thought: “Now. Now I really am in church!
Amen brother...”
No comments:
Post a Comment