local gym stereotypes

I worked out at the gym with Kathy tonight, and as I was doing some kind of knee-bending, leg-pushing weights, I did what I usually do at the gym: people-watch. For your reading pleasure, here are the main types of people I’ve noticed at our gym:

• ultra skinny chick – I’m always a bit confused by this type. You never see big three-hundred-pound chubbers walking around, but instead see twiggy girls in über-short shorts, their iPod strapped to their arm as they do free weights or elliptical machines. I’m not-so-secretly envious of them, actually, since I’m trying to lose weight myself and would be tickled pink (or tickled thin!) to be of their masses. I wouldn’t be on an elliptical machine, though, because I always feel awkward and like I’m squatted down on them. Does anyone else have that feeling, or is it because I have stubby legs in comparison with my long torso?
• crazy-buff old guy – I see old men at the gym and I’m so impressed, because not only are they rockin’ the short shorts in their 60’s, but they’re also really muscular and trim. I guess that’s how they got to be their age, isn’t it? Bein’ all healthy and shit. I’d personally love to be a fat Italian lady when I’m old; you know, the stereotypical one that cooks a lot, always wears a dress, and yells at neighborhood kids out her kitchen window. Problem is, the most Italian I get is when I [poorly] pronounce the restaurant “Bella Notte” in my Southern accent, or when I bake a pizza (“it’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno!”).
• fat, motherly type – I just know Kathy is going to say something about this one, considering she’s my mom’s age and is working out in order to lose weight, too. I see a lot of women in their 30’s and 40’s doing fast walks on treadmills and using the various weight machines, and these ladies are the ones most covered up, skin-wise. Old men? Letting it all hang out. Buff guys? Wearing shirts with the sleeve holes cut down to their waists. Girls in my age range? Short shorts and skintight athletic tops all the way, except for the average-to-chubby girls like me, who get decked out in sweat pants and college t-shirts. The moms, though, are all about skintight sweat pants, I’ve noticed, but at least they aren’t showing off their sweaty goods to the whole gym. This is probably the category of gym-folk I most admire, because I can see them working all day, fixing dinner at night, and then still having the energy to come across town to a gym filled with a bunch of young, pretty college kids. I picture these mom lookalikes as mothers to whiny teenagers back home, and maybe getting to the gym to work off that extra weight is a good break from angsty high schoolers.