Escapades at the Gym

In June, Emma bought me a short membership so I could go to the local Gym. I was still 16 stone one pound so the fat wasn’t going anywhere. Emma said I needed to get my metabolism moving and that fat would fall off. I wasn’t sure because I’d bought loads of exercise CDs with famous people dancing around in a leotard and I’d never watched them, they even dated back to the one Jane Fonda did all those years ago when leg warmers were in fashion. Another CD I had was the green goddess Diana Moran and she was literally dressed from head to toe and bright green. Mr Motivator was the only one did because I loved watching him on TV. The only problem was, I was making and eating all the recipes that Rusty Lee cooked on TV, so it wasn’t a good match.

It was the night before I was going to the Gym and Emma was trying to keep me positive. I’ve never been a lover of the Gym and I was reluctant to go, but I needed to try something else other than just dieting. By the time I’d had four glasses of wine I would have agreed to climb Kilimanjaro and swim the English Channel all in one day.

When I woke up the following morning I felt like I’d been in an induced coma for ten years. My head was banging from drinking wine and I had four chocolate quality street stuck to my face and neck. By the time I got to the Gym I was starving hungry and I was already late so I walked into the little coffee shop inside the building. I was just about to bite into my bacon butty when a thin girl with a pinched face came over to me. ‘Is that you Carol?’ I nodded with a mouth full of sandwich. She sipped on the bottled water she had just bought and smiled ‘Your daughter asked me to look out for you …come on put that pig and bread down and follow me.’

I don’t normally do as I’m told by strangers but there was something quite menacing about her. At first she got me to do a few stretching exercises but after just a minute or two I couldn’t breathe. She slapped her hands together like she wanted to slap my face. ‘Come on no pain no gain.’ Suddenly I got a throwback taste of wine and rum truffles. I wanted to be sick so I sat down so I could compose myself. Melissa lead me to another room where there was red mats all over the floor, I thought she was going to let me have a lie down but no such luck. I lay on the mat and she told me to lift both legs off the ground together and count to ten. I looked like a turtle that had rolled onto its back and couldn’t get back up. I did try my best but I just couldn’t get one leg off the ground let alone two. I looked at Melissa and said ‘God I’m sweating like a pig.’ She smirked at me ‘That’s all the bacon you eat.’ I couldn’t believe how rude she was. I followed her into a Dancercise group and there were women there a lot older than me strutting their stuff. I swung my arms around for no more than a minute then left the room and went home. I’d just walked through the door when the phone rang, it was Melissa again – God is she stalking me I thought. She was a little sarcastic with her manner when she said. ‘I hope to see you tomorrow Carol. It’s a lovely thing your daughter has done for you, it shows how much she cares and she doesn’t want you to die from a massive heart attack because you’re so big.’

I was so shocked all I could say was. ‘Thanks, I’ll be there in the morning.’

Day 2 of the dreaded Gym.

When I arrive at the Gym I make a promise to myself that I needed to take the whole Gym ‘thing’ seriously even though I was ½ an hour late.

Melissa took me in a room and told me to try and do at least 5 sit ups, she couldn’t stay because she was showing another lady round the Gym, she’d only been gone a few minutes when she came running back in the room. ‘Carol stop screaming your frightening the other members’. She then used her saying ‘No pain no gain’ and some other stuff too.
We went next door into the main Gym and she put me on a running machine, I looked at her. She was chirpy as she said. ‘Don’t look so worried Carol; it’s on the setting for very slow.’

Again after only a few minutes I was sweating and my legs were wobbly. All of a sudden I fell forward and pressed the re-set button with my chin, the machine went faster and I couldn’t get off. The agony of being battered by one’s own flesh is horrible. I’d had enough of her so when she was helping an elderly man pick up some weights I ran away.

Day 3 of the torture chamber.

This morning I couldn’t move and I felt muscles I never knew I had. I walk into the bathroom in agony the same way I had years ago when I had given birth to Emma. I couldn’t even hold my toothbrush I was that sore, so I stuck the toothbrush in the plug hole and put my toothbrush in it, I then moved my mouth around the brush up and down and back and forth.

As I drove to the Gym It felt like my insides had caved in and I was sure I’d broken a rib or two. I walk into the Gym like I had curvature of the spine and my legs were going in different directions. Another girl tried to put me on a walking machine again but I declined. The next minute Melissa appeared and my heart began to race. Was I actually scared of this stick insect? Melissa insisted I have a go on the step machine and it was like walking up a broken elevator.

That evening I had fish and chips and a bottle of wine, the wine was to lubricate my joints.

Day 4 of humiliation.

I arrived late because I couldn’t get out of bed, the look on Melissa’s face was the same look my stepmother used to give me when I came home with Cherry B marks up the side of my mouth, like fangs. As I walked past Melissa I whispered ‘skinny cow’; I don’t think she heard me and by now I didn’t care. I hobbled into the main area of the Gym and as I looked around the room I was surrounded by gorgeous girls. Most of them looked immaculate like they were going out to a club. They had immaculate hair, their nails were done, they had full make-up on and one girl next to me looked like a Satsuma she was so tanned, she had a pink T shirt on with ‘Babe’ on the front. I could imagine if I wore that people would automatically think of the film Babe. The girl who appeared to be her friend had white shorts on, well they weren’t actually shorts – more of a fanny pelmet. I was about to have a go on one of the machines when Barbie and Ken walked in. He was bronzed with a pure white T shirt on and he wore blue denim shorts that had been cut to make them shorter and I could see the cheeks of his bottom hanging out. His trainers looked brand new and his socks were brilliant white, he stood looking at himself in the mirror for almost five minutes. I know because while he was watching himself, I was watching him. I looked at his blonde streaks in his hair and wondered where he had them done.

I was sipping my water when a large woman came in, I was grateful because I didn’t feel the odd one out. She took off her cardigan to reveal a top that had ‘Guess’ on the front, as she passed me I said to her ‘Thyroid problem’ she looked at me with pity and said ‘Oh I’m sorry about that pet.’

Melissa came into the room, that woman was like a bad smell she wouldn’t go away, I swear she would make a good dominatrix and she certainly had the face for it. I never imaged I could feel this much hate for someone, the skinny anorexic cheerleader, she should be in school; not here annoying everyone. There wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t ache. When I left the Gym I walked to the car like I’d pooped myself.

The following morning I couldn’t move a muscle they had all completely ceased up and I thought I might have had a stroke in the night because I had no feeling down the right side of my body. I shouted for Harry to help me get out of bed. Harry and Emma came into the bedroom, the two of them took a hand each and started running on the spot slowly I began to come off the bed. I moved around the kitchen like Forest Gump when he had splints on. I told Emma and Harry I heard something twang in the night and I thought it might be my spine. I watched the news on TV for an hour because I was too weak to lift up the remote control. I told Emma I couldn’t go to the Gym today and I couldn’t lift anything heavier than a sandwich. Me and Emma went out for lunch and when we came back home there was a very irritating message from Melissa, the weasel face infant was asking how I was. That evening I sat with my glass of wine and had a chat to Harry and Emma; I needed to put them straight on a few things. Firstly, any future presents birthdays and Christmas I would rather have a root canal filling done with no anaesthetic, or a hysterectomy by a Gandhi lookalike aged about six years of age and if they were feeling extravagant a tapeworm would do and I would gladly share my food with it – but I defiantly didn’t ever want a Gym membership EVER again. I’m no good at bending down, never had been.

If God wanted us to keep bending down he would have sprinkled the ground with Diamonds!