“What sweet fresh hell is that?” This is how I greet most things I don’t expect before 6am especially at the gym. This is applied universally to things like people spazzing out on the rower in a way that makes me stop dead in my tracks and stare (Dude, the rower actually isn’t supposed to be making that noise or doing that. What is that? What is wrong with you?) to a new piece of equipment like “the tank” appearing with its monster truck wheels and bondage ropes wrapped neatly around it. I swear we accidentally conjured that thing up after many of us celebrated the demise of the sled. Gym karma can suck. What were we thinking as we gleefully danced around? That was rhetorical. We were thinking, “YAY!!! Good riddance, sled with your wonky carpet strip!” Oh, and quick side story about the sled, did I ever mention to you guys that Jenn used to stand on it while hurling “words of encouragement” at me as I ran it down the basketball court? Good because that never happened, but man that would have been awful, right? Totally humiliating. Anyway, we were glad when it died, and absolutely horrified when the sled on steroids aka “the Tank” showed up proving a sled could be made worse. FYI, it appears to be much sturdier and more rugged than the sled. I’m not entirely sure a well-placed spike strip could take it out.

So, I walk into the gym today. It’s crack of too early. I’m still wrestling with the idea that I have to get up ALL THE DAYS, and that  apparently fitness doesn’t happen on a couch while binge watching Supernatural. (I’ve been trying this out in the evenings. I feel I need more data points to confirm.)  And there blocking my way to the locker room and waving in all its “what the fresh Hell glory” looms something called a SkiErg. No seriously. A SkiErg. (An advertising firm should be fired. Just my opinion.) And I’m thinking, “What the… Nope! No. Mmm mm. Not having it. Don’t like it. Disapprove.” And right next to it is something called who knows what, but it’s a never-ending rope pulley whatever – probably has an equally bad name. My glasses aren’t on, and fact: if a thing doesn’t have a name, because no way you can decipher the ridiculous sport font hieroglyphics identifying it, then it isn’t real. That’s a thing, John.

These dueling odious little eyesores stand proudly in the designated functional training area paying homage to their Medieval torture device predecessors. Note: This is the same area I spend my Tuesdays in, because Tuesday is my training day and… Oh FRAK! It’s Tuesday. Seriously??? Are you !@#$!-ing me??? And despite it being too early, and me being with zero of the caffeine, I’m able to reason that new brands of torture + training day = Beth being a guinea pig. Come on!

Jenn goes on to demonstrate said new stupidness, which then leads to me fussing about the unfairness of my “guinea pig for the gym status,” as is my right. Jenn then points out that no, she just used them first. Then, with a certain air of gym entitlement, she announces she’s claiming the coveted guinea pig title. Are you kidding me??? I found this all quite suspect, and made much noise about it.  We moved on to the next set of activities, and that’s when she forced me, forced I tell you, to demo the new rope pulley thing for the gym as well, and I swear it was only because I was watching various people approach it, stare at it while trying to work out how this might wreck their lives, too, and a few pre-caffeinated remarks may have come out. Which, by the way, were spot-on and deserved. Super clever lines like “I’m watching the guy behind you try to figure out the rope thing.” Yeah, that’s right. I’m able to whip out that level of clever in the early morning. Fear me.  I mean I was mid doing some super impressive things with arm weights that heralded the need to decrease the weight immediately, wowing my fellow gym-mates, and was right on the heels of revealing some equally awkward arm raising ability, and Jenn announces we’re going to do the rope pulley thing, too as if the SkiUgh wasn’t humiliation enough. That activity wasn’t on the paper listing our day’s routing. I looked. I mean in truth nothing was, which isn’t the point. Still, she claimed that she had it all in her head, but I don’t think the pulley thing was really ever in there. There’s no proof. (For the record, when it comes to the new things that have appeared in the gym that I was also forced to do, there was “the Tank” last week, and the week before I was on a cruise, so well that doesn’t count, but like weeks before that was the fresh hell that was the squishy rocking thing, and who even knows what that thing actually is – maybe a BOSU pill box capsule thingy? I have no idea. It’s new. It’s squishy. I don’t like it. And why? Why all the new things when no one is on the rowing machine. Maybe the rowing machine needs some love?) Also, me doing the new pulley thing meant all eyes (or maybe one set) were on me. It was like I was on stage… for an audience of one, but seriously?

So, we did those. But my story isn’t over. Nope.  As I’m using the new thing, pulling down with all my half-hearted heart. Jenn is reading the info on the side of the machine, which who knew there were words on a thing that I’m refusing to acknowledge even has a name in my endeavor to not allow it to be real, and she says, “you can do pull downs” (what we were doing) “and pull ups.” I say I want to be the first to try the pull ups, and she says she’s going to do it first. THEN SHE RACES ME TO DO IT FIRST!!! Seriously. I don’t get to be the official guinea pig for the new machines, and now I don’t get to be the first to even do the pull up part? Are you kidding me?  And here’s the worst part… THEN! THEN she says, “you can write about it in your blog” all smug like. Mmm hmm. Said it to MY FACE!

Well, I showed her! That’s right, Jenn. I wrote about you in my little blog.

Honestly, the little indignities I suffer…

(Note to all of you literal types: I AM KIDDING! Well no, this all happened, but Jenn is the best and we did try new things today, and she did actually give me grief about writing in my blog. I just wanted to clear that up, and make a note that I’m joking, because well… some of you guys… wow.)