To the front of the cardio room! Why?

I have noticed a weird trend at the JFZ. I almost wrote that it was a disturbing trend, but I think that it is really more weird than disturbing. Disturbing would be more like if people who went to the JFZ went home and murdered their families and burned their house down. And I don’t think people who go to the JFZ are doing that, at least not yet, because my COC is there every day.

But before we go any further, allow me to draw you a map of the upper level of this double decker JFZ…

click on this shizz to make it real.

Map of the Upper Level of Hell

Ok, as you can see, when you come up the stairs from the lower levels, everyone who is making it happen on the various devices can see you. You’re right in the middle. Toward the front of the room is a line of mirrors on the wall, so you can examine exactly how fitness you are getting with all your hard work. Above the mirrors is a line of televisions. The televisions are magically connected to a little deal on your torture device that you can plug your headcans into and hear what is going on on the mike teevee. I always bring my personal aural apparatus because what is on those tv’s is usually suck.

As you come up the stairs, to your left and right are the men’s and ladies’ locker rooms (not pictured. also not pictured here is a large “20 minute workout” area to your left as you come up the stairs). I can’t imagine having to clean these locker rooms. It always smells like the Rock is cooking up something that is somewhere between a possum’s asshole and like someone lit a 30-year-old jockstrap on fire. I know it’s a fairly clean joint, I see JFZ employees cleaning up in there every day, but it just must be impossible to get that odor out. Doesn’t really matter to me, as I’m not one of these people who shower at the gym, so I spend as little time as possible in there.

Anyway, I apologize for the drawings, but you get the idea of where everything is. In the front are what appear to be exercise bicycles, except you sit down on them. I assume they are hard to operate because I only ever see Hardbodies on them.

Behind the sit-down bikes is a row of mechanisms whose purpose eludes me. I assume they are to fitness with, but I don’t know because I’ve never seen anyone hopping around on them. They look like some type of whirly bird hybrid. My guess is that they must be the most hardcore shit in the gym, because no one ever even comes close to them. Either that, or like me, no one knows how they work.

Behind these mysterious mysteries are the treadmills. Walk and/or run in place. I never use these because we have a treadmill at home that I never use either. Using the treadmill is just no fun. The only people I see on the treadmill are either the really fat people who can only walk a little bit before they are winded like the willows, or the really fitfordragoncon people who come in and run on them for eternal amounts of time. Both of which I find inspiring.

Behind the treadmills are the whirly birds, or ellipticals. My personal favorite. I realize that my drawing makes them look like a row of vomiting insects, but just think of them as “symbols” for the whirly birds that exist in that space.

Behind the birds are windows looking out to a lovely view of the parking lot.

And the whole damn thing is colored in this atrocious purply-grey color. The color you got on your leg that time you ran into the coffee table while you were wasted. I hate frackin purple. I use this to my advantage by turning my hatred for purple into energy for destroying my will to live as a fatass.

Now, on to the trend that this entire post was about…

Even in the JFZ, as J-free as it is, what with old folks and tubbies gyrating about on the machines, a fatty such as myself does not feel comfortable. It is just not our natural habitat. If we were allowed to roam free, we’d be most comfortable on a couch somewhere, or in front of a computer. So the tubby species (Fatticus Tubbilaticus Homunculus) just feels out of place and in danger from all the lions roaming about the grasslands of your local gym. But we are not the gazelles. Oh no, we are not. The gazelles, when faced with an approaching lion (or baseball team redneck, whichever you prefer) at least can leap away and run like the wind. We fatties are the wildebeests of the gym ecosystem. When a lion comes, if they are hungry for an easy meal (or an easy fight because that girl at the bar didn’t go home with them last night), we’re just fucked.

That said, I want to point out that there is something to be said for a wildebeest that will willfully venture into lion territory.

The wildebeest slowly comes up the stairs, warily eyeballing the machines available for its use. It thinks, “No, not those fancy sit-down bikes. Those are in the front and everyone will be staring at my fattitude.” Then it thinks, “What the hell are those things? I’m not gonna go near them because they look intimidating and if I get on it and can’t operate it, I’ll look stupid. Stupid and fat! Now there’s a great combination!”

“Ahhhh, the treadmills! Tried and true! Now there’s something a wildebeest can get behind!”

But the wildebeest, having made its decision to get in shape by simulating travel, will not get on the treadmill directly in the center, next to the stairs. The wildebeest, self-esteem decimated by sidelong stares from the lions, will meekly tread to the right or left and go the the farthest treadmill it can find. Out to the outer reaches of lion territory, so as not to be noticed or be in the way of the lions as they go about their mating rituals.

Well, guess what. fuck that.

Today I came up the stairs, fat and proud, and got into the Whirly Bird that was front and center of the pack! I put in my earbuds, pushed a few buttons, and away I went on a 40-minute odyssey to fitness nirvana.

Screw you, lions!!! I dare you to challenge my wildebeest-y wrath!!!

Granted, I didn’t do the sit-down bikes, which are the very front row, or the Mystery Machines, which make lions skittish and wildebeests go into full-blown apeshit panic. But I did get out there and show that whirly bird who was boss in front of all the other whirly bird users.

One day us wildebeests will trample over you lions! We are many and our sheer numbers will overwhelm you into the purple carpet of the JFZ!

At least, once we get off the couch, or leave Azeroth.