One Plastic Bag at a Time

This is a place where noise pollution reigns supreme, where the stench can be overpowering and where the word "eyesore" is the nicest way to describe the landscape.

Is it an EPA Superfund site? An active landfill? An open-pit mining operation?

No, it's my gym.

I know that there's nothing "common" about common courtesy or common sense for that matter, but I am truly vexed by what goes on at my gym.

To me, a gym is a place where you go to exercise. The definition of working out involves concentration, physical exertion, and in my case, a complexion of the loveliest shade of magenta and buckets and buckets of sweat.

Now that's me, and I freely acknowledge that everyone has their own definition of working out. Probably with a lot less sweat. And probably not as purple.

What I'm pretty sure that definition should not include is a cell-phone, make-up, cologne or bling.

So I've made up a little list just in case there is anyone out there who thinks that what they are doing doesn't qualify as working out.

• If you've got enough breath to shriek into your phone at your wayward offspring while on the treadmill, you're not working out. When you turn to the person to share your tale of woe and she doesn't tell you to fuck right off, it is because she is working out and doesn't have the breath for it.


• If you spend more time getting ready to go to the gym than at the gym, are wearing lip gloss, or are worried how cute you look, you're not working out.


• If you're looking in the mirror not to check your form but to check out how your outfit looks or the over-developed meathead with the stick legs next to you, you're not working out.


• If you think that Drakkar Noir is an acceptable substitute for deodorant, not only are you not working out, you shouldn't be allowed to leave your house.


• Wiggling your wrist so that your many bracelets clink together and slide up your arm and re-positioning your diamond-encrusted cross between your pushed up boobies is not what is called "correcting your form."

It's bad enough that the decor, with one wall the color of a day-old bruise, the opposite wall reminiscent of a fresh burn and flames licking at the walls in between puts me somewhere in the second circle of hell.

If everyone would just keep in mind that it's a fitness club, not a nightclub, it would be a lot more pleasant place.

And for the love of Christ, they give you a towel for free. USE IT.

Since this blog is environmentally oriented, let me throw out there that it would be cool to harness the energy from all us hamster wannabes on the treadmills to reduce the electric bill. Just a thought.