The 4 Strangest Encounters I Had at the Gym Yesterday

Let me just preface this by saying that I haven't been to the Y to work out in awhile. Instead, we've been able to use the nice, peaceful weight room at Kenney, where there is never a wait for a machine and the people are never terrifying. But yesterday, I went to the Y after school and, boy, did I ever have a wake-up call. Between the huge men pumping and pumping iron to the tiny boys trying to bulk up, I ran into some pretty interesting people while trying to work out.

4. The Dancing Man - At the Y, they tend to blare very fast, motivational music in the weight room at high volumes. For the most part, people tend to ignore this, but not the man I ran into. During the song S & M (by Rihanna), this man was dancing around weight racks and the benches, waving his arms and doing incredibly uncomfortable hip thrusts. He was an older gentleman too, which made this experience all the weirder.

3. The Squat Hog - There is a lot of equipment at the Y, but at times it can be hard to work yourself in and share. There are two "squat stations," each equipped with a bar and the appropriate weights. These are usually the most popular, so I knew that I wouldn't get my turn there when I first arrived yesterday. I waited for about half an hour, but the same man was using the station. He would do a couple reps for a minute, then rest about five, leaving his weights and taking a casual stroll around the gym! I wanted to go and steal the station from him, but he left his multitudes of large weights on the bar, and I knew that I would embarrass myself if I tried to take them off. Finally, he took of his weights and left and I ran over to snatch the station before anyone else did. No sooner had I gotten there, he came back and asked if he could "work in" with me, because he still wasn't done!

2. The Arctic-Clad Observer - The squat station isn't the only machine at the Y that was occupied for awhile yesterday. I wanted to do my leg curls, so I went over the section with all the leg machines.  However, the machine wasn't empty. There was a middle-aged woman sitting on it, not lifting any weight. She was perched on the machine watching what everyone else around her was doing. Not only that, but she was also dressed for sub-zero temperatures in a large pair of sweatpants as well as a legitimate parka. I waited for awhile, but she just sat there with no intention of moving, so I moved on. I saw her get up and leave about five minutes later.

1. Cashin' Out - My personal favorite, however, was the main I bumped into at the overhead press. And by bumped, I mean accidentally tripped over his foot and then stuttered about 10 apologies because I was so terrified. He was about my height, but very wide, with a beard to rival any of the Robertson's (from Duck Dynasty). Instead of a camouflage shirt, however, he wore a very large black tee shirt with the word CASH  spelled out in huge, capital letters. If that wasn't enough, underneath there was a large picture of a sneering man flipping off the camera (or whatever people dared to check out this shirt). All I could wonder was, where did he ever find a shirt like that and why did he decide to wear it to a place full of children?

And there we have it, my picture of the Y on a school afternoon. My recommendation? If you want to work out, go at night. Do you have any weird gym encounters?

No Matter What, She's Always a Puppy to Me

Yesterday my dog, Molly, went to the vet for her first "old dog check-up." She came home laden with pills, slightly wobbly from two shots, and scheduled for a surgery to remove one of her teeth. I was shocked. The little ball of fluff that I'd always called "Puppy" or "Baby" was entering into her senior citizen years. It seemed like yesterday that we had gotten her.

When I was in fifth grade, I badly wanted a dog, as did all of my sisters. It got so bad that my mom bought us a life-sized "real dog" stuffed animal to play with, along with assorted strange outfits, but that did no good. We had to settle for babysitting other family's dogs when they went away on vacation, getting to pretend we had one for a few days before we had to give it back. That changed the fall of my fifth grade year when we took in a shih tzu named Moxie.

A family friend of ours called one day and asked if we could watch this little dog for about a week. They were watching her for an older woman, and just went over to let her out in the backyard three times a day. She was cooped up in a house, and the living conditions were horrible. The woman they were watching her for was in the hospital for a "brief procedure," they assured us. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity, and Moxie came to stay with us.

Moxie was the stereotypical lap dog of an old woman. And by lap dog, I mean that she was incredibly lazy and not used to living with four girls and two energetic parents. Moxie loved to sit on laps, but didn't know how to play. We would toss a ball and she would run toward it, only to get tired halfway and plop on the floor for awhile to rest. She didn't know how to climb stairs, and when she learned she would get tired after two or three steps and just sit and look at us, with those giant brown eyes. We LOVED her. So, when the week was up, the thought of giving her back was very painful. But no one contacted us, or came to pick her up. Moxie remained at the Michael house.

After that one week turned into two, two turned into three, a month passed, and eventually two. We had no idea what was going on, but we soon received devastating news. This woman who we thought was in the hospital only for a brief procedure was an 85-year-old woman who was very ill, staying in the ICU. We were stunned. No one had mentioned this to us, and we didn't know what to do. A few days later she passed away, leaving no mention of what to do with her dog. We didn't know either, until one day when my dad came home and suddenly got up during dinner with an announcement. He turned to Molly and said, "Moxie, would you like to become a Michael?" 

That was the biggest surprise to us, because the one stick in the mud with the dog situation was my dad. Seeing him now, you would have no idea that he used to despise dogs. He refused to touch Moxie, and only occasionally referred to her as "Dog." Then one day, he came home from work and fell asleep on the couch. Moxie jumped on his stomach, curled up in a ball, and fell asleep too. Since then, the two of them have been inseparable. He takes Molly on long walks, feeds her scraps from his plate when he gets up to put it in the dishwasher, and lets her sleep on his stomach every day when he gets home from work.

And that's how we got our puppy. Of course, we had to change her name to something a little more dog-like, and Molly Michael became Thing 5 (in picture). It seems like she was a puppy such a short time ago, but now she's entering her grown-up dog years. And although sooner or later she may have to invest in something like Dentures for Dogs, she'll always be a puppy to me.