And Now I Will Mime What I Want You To Do With Your New Year's Resolutions

Walking back into the locker room of my gym, the first thing I see is a big sign prohibiting the use of cell phones in that space. It never occurred to me to inquire why, specifically, the locker room was off limits. I suppose I had just assumed that with the proliferation of camera phones, people were wary of having someone make a call and accidentally (or on purpose) snap a shot of someone else's bare ass. But what has occurred to me and what I think I might be asking about during my next visit, is why those signs aren't posted everywhere else in the gym.

I was finishing up my workout today, bobbing my head like an idiot to the music piped into my ears by my new MP3 player, when I heard someone talking animatedly not too far away. I peeked around, hoping that the person in question wasn't speaking to me. No, instead, a blonde in tight workout attire was hogging the leg press while carrying on a very loud conversation with someone on her cell phone. I returned to my own workout, but not before giving her my patented "Really? That's an interesting choice" look.

I honestly do not understand the use of cell phones on the gym floor. Can someone please explain it to me? Because first of all, as I see it, cell phones are for our convenience, so we can nag our spouses about taking the laundry out of the washer and putting it in the dryer before it mildews while we pick up dinner from the Chinese place down the street. Taking a call in the middle of a set on the leg press is just not convenient, in my opinion. In fact, it seems like an unnecessary distraction. I know I would lose count, anyway, and probably end up either pulling a muscle or barely breaking a sweat. Neither seems much the point of going to the gym.

Secondly, it's discourteous to the rest of us who are just trying to get our workouts done. We don't care to listen to your sob story about how you got drunk and made out with this guy only he's dating your sort of close friend Gina and now Gina is pissed at you and she has your favorite lip gloss and won't accept your apology and now how are you going to get your lip gloss back? And yet, you generally have to talk really loudly to be heard over the piped-in music on the floor, so whether we want to or not, we are privy to the sad state of your lip gloss affairs.

Third, there is the part about you hogging equipment. I mean, if you can talk and work out at the same time, I still think you're annoying but I will forgive you, because at least you are not sitting on a machine I need. But if, for example, you are the blonde in the tight workout attire, you are using the leg press as a chair while you whine about your favorite lip gloss, and putting me in the uncomfortable position of having to mime to you that I need the machine and could you maybe take your conversation somewhere else. That is poor gym floor etiquette. I should not have to mime under any circumstances, but it seems particularly egregious to have to do so when I'm already humiliated about the fact that my body is stuffed into spandex like I'm some reject from the sausage factory.

And okay, thankfully, it's not always me doing the miming. But I do see scenes like this play out quite a bit during my time at the gym, which means that there are a lot more people suffering through the indignity of the Spandex Mime, and it's only gotten worse since the first of the year. Everyone with a variation of "I will get more regular exercise" or "I will lose weight" on his list of New Year's Resolutions is crowding the gyms right now and sadly, not all of them are familiar with a little thing I like to call "common courtesy". So, I guess what I'm saying is I just wish that more people would put "I will not be that asshole on the phone" resolution right under the "I will go to the gym regularly" resolution. That way I can get through a little more time before my "I will not bitch-slap strangers, even if they are self-absorbed and have a hefty sense of entitlement" resolution goes down the tubes. I'm just asking to make it to mid-January, people. Is that really so unrealistic?