May You Work Out In Interesting Times.

My gym is never boring. Sure, sometimes I get bored with the elliptical or a certain class but that's not what I mean. The members, residents, hotel guests and staff are always interesting. And by interesting, I generally mean crazy.

There are a pair of resident sisters who you never want to shower after because its sounds like a man is in there with all the phleghm being coughed up and spit out. There is a member who wears a wetsuit to swim in the rather warm water pool and then leaves the sauna open to dry the wetsuit out. There is a 28 year old instructor engaged to a 48 year old man, who is currently on a four year anniversary trip in Monaco. There is the woman with ever changing wig colors who's bucket list included joining a nice gym despite apparently never having been to a gym before, judging by the need to be shown what a push up was.

This morning, M and I finished our workouts and walked into the locker room to hear some banging and yelling. My first thought was that it was waaaaaaaaay too early for dealing with loud kids. But, it turned out to be a woman who was locked in a shower. Each time she told the story, the amount of time got longer. At first, it was 20 minutes, then 40, then over an hour. Seeing as how she didn't have a watch on, her guess is as good as mine (although it definitely wasn't an hour because that meant she was trapped when I got to the gym and I guarantee we would have heard her). M and I tried to help her out, explaining which way to turn it. We were hampered by English not being her first language and the fact that the lock was really broken.

We went to the front to get some help. One of my favorites was working this morning. She called maintenance and while we were waiting tried to jimmy the lock open with a safety pin and a gift card. That sucker was really stuck. It ended up taking three maintenance guys ten minutes to free her. She put on a bit of a show of outrage and dismay -- I wouldn't be surprised if she got a lot of free stuff as a result. But, once everyone official was gone, her outrage seemed to disappear. Rather than getting the hell out of there and just going back to her room, she went to the sauna, tried all of the various products and then TOOK ANOTHER SHOWER!

It wasn't funny. It was hilarious.