A Thousand Words

A few days ago Heids and I were talking about something that I don’t remember and in the course of our conversation American Gladiators came up and I stopped in my tracks and thought, OH MY GOSH, I loved American Gladiators. I completely forgot about that show. I remember rearranging my schedule (which was not difficult) to watch it, and being disappointed when there were new people. Or…I can’t remember what really happened, did they change the format of it at some point? I just remember being the same amount upset at them as I was when Bo & Luke were replaced with their “cousins” during that one season of Dukes of Hazzard. Annnnyway. It’s been on my mind now, and had been wondering if it was available on DVD or anything and then all of a sudden I’m reading some fluff news and see this article. I’m so happy! It will obviously be nowhere near as good as the original, and in fact, I’ll probably hate it the way I hate most re-made things, but there is part of me that still has a twinge of hope that it will be worth watching.

I just had one of the most unusual calls.
“Blah, blah, blah, charity, you’ve been arrested and we’re serving you papers to lock you up at a local downtown restaurant for a day to help raise money for a charity. The person that ratted you out said you were caring and compassionate and would be a good fit for jail. The firefighters will come pick you up and once you’ve served your time and raised enough money for charity they will drop you off.”

I was kind of confused the entire conversation. Caring and compassionate my ass, I had to politely decline as I couldn’t just miss an entire day of work, even if it were charity, and Lord knows how long it would have taken me to raise enough money. So then I went ahead and gave them the name and number of someone I think would be a good fit for charity jail. I was extremely tempted to ask if the Firefighters could still come pick me up and drive me around for a while.

Well, gym guy has proven to be extra pushy. I saw him at the gym and tried to avoid eye contact with him until the last possible moment and then I agreed to go to the movies with him sometime this weekend. I can’t help it. Since then he basically invited himself to a Vikings game I may or may not be going to, and also, do I know if there’s any room on the dock for him to put his 18′ sport boat? gag.

Our offices are in the retail spaces of an apartment complex, and one of the perks of my job is that I get to use the gym that the residents have.

For the past 2 months I’ve been trying to go to the gym on my lunch break as frequently as possible to work out. It’s pretty much a perfect set up because it saves me some time after work, and most of the residents have jobs, and I’m usually the only one in there.

About a month ago, I started to to notice that this guy was in there usually around the same time I was. A coincidence, I figured. We never actually talked to each other because I guess we were in the zone, and besides, I don’t really like making small talk when I’m all sweaty and in the middle of lunges. About a week and a half ago I had just finished running and was about to head to the showers when he came in. I asked him if he wanted me to turn off the TV. If I’m the only one in there, I’ll usually turn on CMT, because who doesn’t love CMT? Anyway, he said no, that’s fine and that was the gist of our conversation.

So last week I went in to the gym and was changing and heard the TV kick on. When I walked out CMT was on and he was working out. How considerate, huh? So I had finished up working out and of course he was in there and as I was walking out I gave him the slight head nod and polite, no teeth smile. That apparently opened the floodgates for him.  He blurted out, “Your perfume smells so nice!!” Well, of course it does, I thought, it’s Frozen Daiquiri. So then I introduced myself and so did he and I said, “well it looks like we’re unspoken workout buddies, huh?” So we chatted a smidge more and then I went back to work.

Later that evening I got a message on Myspace. The subject line, “Are you my workout buddy, Shelly?” Whaaaaat. He didn’t have my last name, so I guess he did a generic “Shelly” search in the greater Seattle area. I’m not going to lie, I thought it was a little weird. Why couldn’t he just wait til the next day in the gym to talk to me? I guess he was a little antsy. So, anyway, in his email he told me he was probably going to be taking some vacation time at work that next afternoon so he could workout. Um…what! Extreme. I didn’t end up going to the gym the next day because work was crazy (and I didn’t really want to see him), but he emailed me and said he had an intense workout. So, since Friday he’s asked me out twice, and thankfully I’ve been sick so I’ve had to turn him down. Once I’m feeling better I feel like I should probably hang out with him at least once, because he does seem generally nice, if a little persistent.

I’m not going to lie when I say I’m a little nervous to go to the gym on lunch. Now if he’s in there it’s going to be all weird and I’m going to feel like I need to talk to him and  I’ll be a little self conscious, because is he staring at my fat roll as I’m lifting this weight?