Me and The Incredible Mr. Sweaty

All indications are it’s a go for Gyms to open up soon.  Part of me is eager to get back to pumping iron and running the track like I’m some kind of damn Rocky Balboa. Then there is a part of me that recalls one of my last few times I spent at the Gym that kind of has me still horrified. It’s a story of mystery, intrigue and well, for lack of a better term, salty sweat.

I will call him Mr. Sweaty:

Perched from a lofty position aboard an Elliptical, I once watched a guy slowly and methodically place no less than a dozen white towels around the machine across from me. This curiously behaving gentlemen was dressed in a tank top, shorts and sandals…yep, I said sandals. Upon completion of the lengthy project he proceeded to climb aboard his towel surrounded machine and give it his all.  I mean this guy was in it to win it! I don’t think I’ve ever seen elbows and sandals sway back and forth with such force and vigor.

At this juncture I began to realize why Mr. Sweaty had surrounded his machine with enough gym towels to wipe off a full-grown Elephant. Sweating profusely would’ve been an understatement. I mean it looked his entire body was crying. He looked like someone had just lifted him out of a Ceasars Palace Fountain Show and placed him on the machine and believe it or not, only been about 8 minutes had passed!

After soaking the machine, the towels, the floor and probably the floor beneath our second floor locale, it was clean up time. But not even 30 rolls of the quicker picker upper Bounty paper towel could absorb this guys sea of sweat. I will give him this - he did have the decency to visit the janitors closet and spend the next 10 minutes wiping the 7 acres of Gym floor he soaked with his salty profusion.  He did a decent job of wiping up the ocean of sweat however I didn’t have the heart to tell him his sandals were leaving a series of sweaty foot prints all the way back to the janitors closet.

As for me, I mentally marked the machine where Mr. Sweaty had left every DNA filled sweat particle imaginable and never used a machine in that row again. I mean I don’t care how many towels you put down Mr. Sweaty, I will not bring a life jacket to a Gym.