Its mid February, which means I’ve been back in the gym for about six weeks now. I, like many of you, suffered a holiday workout mini-breakdown that started with good intentions and ended with about six extra pounds. So now I’m hitting the gym hard.
But the problem with going to the gym–is well–its the gym.
It’s full of awkward social exchanges, potential embarrassment and gross smells. Anytime people get sweaty, prance around the locker room in nothing but tattoos and body hair, and make grunting noises–it’s an eye opening experience.
So Tim and I are getting our workout on. He’s lifting weights and I’m on the treadmill. As soon as I get a little warm, I peel off my coral long sleeve Nike workout shirt I received for Christmas (apparently to encourage me to work out) and throw it on ground next to my machine.
(I have a tank top on underneath just in case you thought I got naked)
I then immerse myself in “Hard Evidence” for the next forty minutes while climbing fake hills and terrain.
The show ends. I am so sucked in I can’t stop until I am assured that this evil woman is sentenced to life. Apparently she stun-gunned her husband and placed him alive in a barrel of acid. Wow. Don’t want to run into that chick at the gym
I switch off the machine and turn around. And there directly behind the treadmill on the ground is my bright red lacy thong panties.
I look around and I see a few smirks. It must have been stuck to the inside of my sweatshirt from laundry day.
It’s been 40 minutes since I took off my Nike sweatshirt. 40 minutes for the whole gym to walk by my underpants.
Awesome! I casually pick them up and throw them in my bag and then mentally place the dog cone of shame on my head and skulk away.
My cheeks burn. I hope no one walked by and noticed the pastor’s wife flaunting her little lingerie party.
I walk over to Tim, now on the treadmill.
He belly laughs when I tell him the story. Then he tells me he how he just embarrassed himself too
A young fit girl on the back machine smiled and waved. Tim thought it was someone from the college group at church so he smiled big in reply and said “hi.”
But so did the big, ripped and inked guy behind him. You know, the one she was really waving to. The guy gave a withering look to my husband, the “as if…buddy” look.
Awkward…
But the best cone of shame story is told to me by my neighbor later that day.
So, he’s changing in the men’s locker room. He puts is foot in through one leg of his athletic pants, then the next. But the second leg sticks. Something is blocking his foot. So he pushes a little harder and out flies a small hot pink thong that flies across the floor of the men’s locker room.
And he is left with a bunch of dudes looking at him like he is a cross dresser.
Now we all know it was merely the bad luck of static cling, laundry day and a cute wife that can wear tiny hot pink thongs.
But the guys in the locker room didn’t. Remember, the sweaty, gross, hairy, ripped ones?
So he “oh so casually” walks over, picks it up and tosses it in the trash because he figures his wife wouldn’t go near it after he told her where it had been.
Nice.
Tell me again, why do we go to the gym?
