Gym Watching…

Alright, I think that besides the Foxwoods Atrium, the gym is my favorite place to people watch.  

There could quite possible be more stupid people per capita at the gym then any other place I can think of.  And it doesn’t even matter what gym, they will be there.  I would like to give some props to people getting off the couch to work out, but maybe they should do some research before they decide to start lifting weights.

I know how to work out.  I am an orthopedic physical therapist, so it goes with the territory.  This makes people watching all the more fun.  

I usually start on the treadmill.  Today, some kid decided to pull up on the treadmill next to me.  In Vans.  VANS!!!  WTF?  Please, please, please don’t ever run in Vans!  First, because they are just horrible for your feet.  Second, YOU SOUND LIKE A CLYDESDALE ON THE TREADMILL.  All the dirty looks in the world could not get this kid off the treadmill.  When I can hear your feet over my headphones, it is not good.  And I want to kill you.  I was contemplating moving treadmills, which is the total pits because you don’t get an accurate idea of what you have done.  I decided if I just turned up the volume, maybe I could tolerate this kid.  He could only run about 1 minute before he had to put his hand on the rails and take a break.  I was giving him 10 minutes, figuring he couldn’t last much longer than that.  I could do this for 10 minutes.  Then, a woman jumps on the treadmill to my left.  While I am shooting daggers at Vans boy, I smell cigarettes.  This woman smells like a freaking pack of cigarettes.  Why do you smoke a cigarette immediately before you get on the treadmill?  Oh yeah, because you are STUPID!  So, I moved.  Grrrr.

The most common place to see stupid people?  The lat-pulldown machine.  I don’t know who started this “pull the bar behind your head” business, but whoever that person was is STUPID.  For God’s sake, the directions are right on the machine!  Pull in front!  I just want to leave my card right by that machine with a note that says “If you are pulling the bar behind your head, please call me when you can’t feel your arms and/or turn your head anymore”.  

According to my gym motto, I am apparently not supposed to be judging people.  Oops.  Lucky for me, they can’t stop what goes on in my head.  And it is a lot.  And if you are at the gym, just know that I am probably watching you.  And if you aren’t at my gym, just know that someone else is probably watching you.

Foxwoods Atrium–Twilight Zone?

Ok, I know I said I was going to be gone for the weekend, which I am; however, I went to Foxwoods last night and HAVE to write about it!

First, I have to say that I don’t really like Foxwoods.  It is a little further away from us than Mohegan, so there is no real need for us to go there.  Also, it is a weird place.  It doesn’t have the “flow” that Mohegan does, and it feels like I may have been transported to the eighties or maybe early nineties when you walk in the door.  The only time I have ever been there is for an event.  Unlike Mohegan, it is not somewhere I would go to go to a bar or just “hang out”.

So, we met my sister and bro-in-law there last night because they wanted to go to an alleged “jazz band” at the Atrium.  We ate at the Stadium Sports Bar.  The food was decent, typical bar food, I would say.  We wandered around the casino a little while waiting for the band to start at 9:30.

So, for those of you who don’t know, The Atrium is a small stage with a small dance floor and a bar and some cushy chairs scattered around to watch whoever is playing.  It is free, which means any body, and I mean ANY body, can wander up and enjoy the music.

Now, my sister tried to take pictures because visual references would really help here.  Unfortunately they didn’t come out…so I am going to do my best to explain what we witnessed at The Atrium.

Turns out the band (who shall remain nameless) was not a jazz band.  They were a Motown Revue.  Which is fine.  However, if you could imagine crooning and Smokey Robinson and/or Temptations playing in the background right now, that would help set the mood.  If you could also imagine the three lead singers in black suits that were possibly bedazzled performing choreographed dance moves while singing, that would help too.

Now, I will try to explain to you the weirdest hour of people watching in my life.

First, there was a couple, probably in their mid- to late-sixties.  They were VERY good dancers.  They were there to dance.  They were probably disturbed by the other riff-raff that I will describe later.  But I was very disturbed because this white haired old man, who I shall call Chester (the Molester), was looking at his wife like he was going to rip off her clothes at any moment.  He was leering.  It was gross.  If he were to look at me like he was looking at his wife, I probably would have called the police.  Seriously.  Meanwhile the wife would not even look at the husband.  As I said, they were fantastic dancers, but it didn’t really seem like they liked each other.  I wouldn’t like my husband if he looked at me like that either.

Next, a man comes dancing by us onto the dance floor, who I shall call NoNeck.  We only see him from behind at first.  There is a good chance he had been drinking for the past 12 hours.  From behind, he had on Grandpa Jeans.  You know the ones, you may buy them the same place you by Mom Jeans.  However, it threw me into a state of confusion when he turned around and was probably 45 or 50.  This was a strange juxtaposition my brain couldn’t handle.  And he was dancing, oh boy, was he dancing.  By himself.  Horribly.  Drunkenly.  And this is where visual aids would have helped.  (I would also like to remind you that is is 9:45 at this point.  And by no means should the dancing have fallen to this level already).  My sister and I are laughing blatently and another women next to us says something along the lines of “NoNeck’s sure going to have a headache in the morning!”

Turns out this woman, who I shall call Spiral Perm, didn’t really care about this man.  She was looking for friends to dance with her.  Turns out that that didn’t matter, because she just decided to dance by herself.  Spiral Perm apparently has no qualms about gyrating her pelvis all over the dance floor by herself.  And singing the words to the people around her to see if any of them will join in and dance with her.  They didn’t. 

Next, from across the dance floor is an interesting little person, who I shall call OP (as in osteoporosis).  Well, not a real little person.  But she was probably around 4’6″ tall.  And she probably weighed about 75 pounds.  And OP was probably 70 years old, only she was in that weird place where you couldn’t really tell.  She could have been an old 50 or a young 90.  I have no idea.  I do know that she was wearing a curtain.  Draped to form some kind of pants suit.  Flowers all over her 70 pound frame.  And she was droppin’ it like it was hot.  Seriously.  OP’s dancing style would have probably fit better at a Flo Rida concert.

And, the best for last–in strolls this “couple”.  The woman, I shall call Elaine.  However Elaine’s dancing would have put this woman to shame.  I just don’t know what else to call her.  The man, I shall call Dorf.  As in Dorf on Golf (Tim Conway), only a little taller and with white hair.  Elain was probably about 6 feet tall.  Dorf was probably about 5’6″.  Elaine was gangly.  Her hair hung in her face.  She put her fanny pack up on stage with the band.  I kid you not.  She had to move it at one point because when Smokey came up front to sing, it was in his way.  And Elaine DANCED.  Not only did Elaine dance, she did some interpretative dancing–to MOTOWN.  Then she would gyrate on Dorf.  It was so horrible and awkward that I asked my sister what these two could possibly be like in bed.  Because there was no logical way that it would work.  Well, lucky for me, I got a little bit of an answer to that question when she towered over him, grabbed his face with both hands, and stuck her tongue down his throat, while gyrating.  Seriously, this was not kissing.  This was open mouth, stick tongue down throat disgusting-ness.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  At this point, there were a few college kids in front of us that were also gawking.  We had to ask them to move because they were in our way.  When Elaine and Dorf packed up their fanny packs and left after about 4songs, we had had enough and made our way out of The Atrium Twilight Zone.

I have never in my life seen such a interesting and disturbing group of people.  We didn’t even stay that long and the band wasn’t what we thought it would be.  But that trip was worth it to witness some people and some dancing that I will never see again.  I hope that this blog is even a tenth as entertaining as the real thing was.  That will be a success for me.