Dear Athletic Club

I have several issues with the gym. Most of them revolving around the fact that when I’m there I am forced to exercise, but whatever.

First of all, I find the free weight coloring system appalling. Seriously. As if it weren’t humiliating enough to be using 2lb dumbbells (not that I do…) but they have to be pink? Pink! Because when the guy next to you is benching two hundred and you’re sweating under the burden of your pair of deuces, you want his attention drawn to the fact that they match your tank top. Luckily, I skipped the apple cores and went straight to the big guns – the fives. The five pounders are blue, the eights are green and the tens are black. All of them are some sort of foam. I’m on to the tens now, so my embarrassment isn’t as painful as it once was, but I still think the weight companies ought to do something about this. I propose making anything above 15lbs mandatory pastel. After all, a real man not only has muscle but can maintain his masculinity while holding girly colored paraphernalia.

One of the more frustrating parts of the gym excursion for me is the cardio. Nothing is more boring than sitting in one place for 30 minutes, spinning your wheels and staring at the Food Network. What is up with people’s tastes? Why is it that there are six television screens and none of them ever show anything I want to watch? (And don’t give me some BS about me going up there and changing the channel. Even if I wasn’t going to turn it to Sci Fi or something equally shameful, I still wouldn’t have the nerve to turn to the masses and ask if anyone was watching tv number 4. Please.) Inevitably two are on a cooking show (the same one on either end of the media bank), one is on sports, two are on the news and one is on Seventh Heaven (shouldn't the Camdens have died of old age by now?). So, I am relegated to listening to my iPod – which, no matter how many times I upload new songs, always seems to be playing crap I’m tired of. But what really gets me… is that I am forced to listen to music and NOT sing along. It’s like putting me next to Joe Flanigan but not letting me touch him. Cruel.

The biggest downside to gymming? (See that there? I made it a verb. I’m a good fangirl.) There are people there! You are constantly surrounded by strangers! Knee pushups are awkward enough in the comfort of my own living room. Doing them smack dab in the center of the whole of West Salem is positively mortifying. There should most certainly be small dark rooms where you can do your physical laboring in private. And they should be soundproof so that I may sing freely. And they should have those mirrors that make you look skinny. And every once in a while a hot man should knock on the door and offer you ice water and a "Pardon me for saying this, but you have an impressive set of muscles on that delicate frame."