Laughing with Di – May 2019

What’s a morning like for a female “senior” at a health club?
Let’s have a laugh…
She parks a distance away from the front door: 1) additional walking time? or 2) less chance of a fender-bender? Your guess. Walks up the stairs (24 steps), picks a treadmill, she is already out of breath and waits to recover. (BTW, one of Webster’s definitions of treadmill: “a mill worked by persons treading on steps on the periphery of a wide wheel having a horizontal axis and used formerly in prison punishment.”) Hmmm.
When done treading, she looks up from her book (yes, she reads, instead of talking loudly on a cell phone) and her eyes focus on a guy downstairs. He is big, burly, barrel-chested and wearing shorts and a wrestler shirt. Why is this amusing? The contrast between his outfit and her outfit makes her smile. She is wearing long, warm workout pants, a short-sleeved top under a long-sleeved top under an outer vest. She is old and cold.
She heads downstairs to her favorite machine and a young guy arrives at the spot simultaneously. He smiles and says, “We can share.” And so they do. After his ten reps, he resets the weights from his three hundred pounds (grin) to her forty – every time.
In her experience pretty much all of the young men at this gym are very polite and gentlemanly. They hold doors open. They happily help every time to raise and lower machine seats (with awkwardly placed levers) when asked. This gives me hope for the future!
After about 45 minutes, she leaves the gym, often along with “senior” males, who have spent their time gossiping and chatting about movies, sports, their aches and pains and every now and then doing some reps – and not holding the door for her!
Go figure.