And then something happened...

I've been worrying for a few days that nothing exciting or post-worthy has been happening to me. Although most things I write about aren't exactly happening to me, they're things I care enough to form an opinion about, which, come to think of it, is not really saying much. But as soon as I decided I was washed up and work was sucking the life out of me (and it is), something slightly entertaining and slightly destructive happened.

Two factors combined yesterday to bring me to this time time and place. 1) My pilates instructor talked about a cool movie room at the gym she goes to a few miles north of me. She said they play the same movie all day long, over and over, and it makes the minutes fly by. My interest was piqued (I had to look that word up to make sure it wasn't really peaked). 2) My coworker/friend got in a car accident yesterday and due to recent hail storms, had to have a ride to a car rental place that was convienently a few miles north of me. So of course I decide to try out this crazy movie room gym thing I'd heard about. (Maybe other gyms have cardio cinemas and these aren't actually weird and new but to me? Insanity.)

I drug my coworker/friend to the gym with me - she kinda had to since I was giving her a ride and all - and we walked into the gym and stood outside the "cardio cinema." The sign next to the door said 7 Pounds was playing. I've been wanting to see at least a little of that movie, because the boy says it's really interesting (although I don't trust his movie judgment at. all.). We went in and were immediately consumed by darkness. It was really dark! I thought I would trip over people and/or equipment, so I stood like an idiot for a few minutes trying to figure out exactly what the set up was in the room. We found two treadmills together in the front and hopped on. It took a little less than 2 minutes before I realized there was a reason the treadmills at the front of the room (next to the giant, movie-sized screen) were empty. I nearly fell twice (or so I thought nearly fell, but I'll get to what nearly falling looks like in a minute) trying to look at the screen and run in a straight line, which I've decided is basically impossible.

We moved to treadmills in the middle of the room after a couple of minutes. Actually the coworker/friend left the entire cardio cinema after she ran a few minutes because she couldn't handle the intensity of the big screen, the dark room, and the blinking red lights of the machines, which were pretty much the only indicators of any kind of depth perception. Oh yeah! (in my best Peggy Hill)

I, on the other hand, really enjoyed the treadmill and the dark room. I vowed not to look at my time until the current scene was over. Turns out the scene I was watching was never over. 7 Pounds is a looong and boring movie. Good thing I caught the end. I had a sweater draped over the front of the treadmill, so a) I could cover my time with it (it's a mental thing) and b) it wouldn't sit on the dirty floor because I care about my sweater, you see? About 10 minutes into running, my sweater fell of the treadmill and traversed the length of the treadmill onto the ground behind me. I looked back to watch it land and turned back to running. I figured it would stay there and I would pick it up once I was done. A couple of seconds later the belt on the treadmills lurched and practically stopped. You know that almost falling I talked about earlier? That was nothing. This almost falling was much more palpable. Although I didn't technically bust it, I did flail supremely well and I yelled/screamed so loud that I drew the entire (full) room's attention away from a Will Smith sex scene to me.

The treadmill then went on its merry way, only at a slightly slower pace. I stupidly thought it was a really sensitive machine and it must have felt my sweater fall on it and fall off on the ground. I tried, repeatedly, to up the speed back to a workable pace and when that failed, I looked back to see if my sweater was somehow the culprit. Of course it was gone from behind the treadmill. I sighed, stopped my machine, and knelt down like a fool at the foot of the treadmill. Of course my sweater had somehow got stuck up in the rolling belt. Of course it got so stuck that I couldn't pull it out. I did hear some ripping when I tried though. One good thing about the darkness of the cardio cinema? No one can tell the exact idiot you're making of yourself. They have some sense of it but not an entire grasp of it.

I went to the front and asked for help. A really hot, gym guy came to help me and declared my sweater stuck. You don't say? He went for help from another really hot, gym guy ("the muscle" according to the first hot, gym guy), and they proceeded to laugh at me, stare in wonder at the predicament, laugh some more, and then use absurdly stupid boy logic to get the sweater out (i.e. pulling). The first guy told me, apologetically, that the sweater probably would not come out in the same condition it when in. As I'd already accepted that portion of future events, as any relatively cognizant person would, I told him not to worry about it. Between the two of them and many grunts they finally managed to pull the pretty, pink sweater from underneath the treadmill belt. The first hot guy fell backwards into an elliptical machine and almost made that person fall off, which sort of made the whole experience worth it for me (seeing one of those hot gym guys look like an uncoordinated ass at the gym? priceless), and held up a tattered, holey, ripped pink sweater that somewhat resembled the one I'd been wearing earlier. The second guy handed me a button he'd managed to retrieve - real funny - and they ambled off, still laughing.

And all I could think as I attempted to re-find my running groove (never happened) was that finally I had something to write about.

I also realize that if I wrote more often, I could have condensed that into a much funnier, briefer post but since I haven't written in a week, I figured blogspot could handle it.