New Girl at the Gym

Picture this: a medium blonde girl walks into a gym. In Nebraska. After not having seen the inside of a gym for almost a week because she found that people pretty much hibernate in their homes in the midwest all winter and do not leave unless they are a) fresh out of food or b) the house is actually burning down. So, medium sized blonde girl (who’s been getting into lifting) walks into a gym. And not just any gym. HEALTH GENESIS CLUB was posted in big print at the front door. I walk in (yeah I’m that medium sized blonde girl) to see a whole collection of machinery to work with. A tear wets the corner of my cheek. Sniffle* I finally get to lift. I virtually bound to the cardio machines to warm up, take a quick jog and sweatily make my way over to the weight machines. I am vibing. I finish my first set where I focused on back and thought hell yes gonna do some legs too cause why not and I probably won’t get to see another gym for who knows how long *sigh. I step up to a rack. If you’ve never been to a gym before, a rack is the place where people usually do squats and there are some kinds of racks that are attached to a moving safety bar (smith machines) so you can’t hurt yourself and you can do both squats and bench press. Well, I looked over, saw some racks with a smith machine on the end. I walk up to one, but this one looks a little funny. Instead of just one place where you can set the bar there’s two. And this one doesn’t have a little safety edge in case you drop the weights. I don’t think much of it because there’s no bench in the middle, and so with rock music pounding in my ears I get to work on deadlifts, front squats, and sumo squats with the bar. Then I started getting some looks. A cute guy with an ~arms~cut~off~tank~top~ looks at me, looks at his friend and snickers. In my mind I’m thinking oh they probably think I’m hot that’s why they’re looking. Your girl is working HARD AND SHE IS LOOKING SMEXY GETTING THAT BOY ATTENTION OW. I’m working so hard they can’t help but stare. At one point one of the guys even walks over to me like he’s about to talk to me, but then decides otherwise. So, I think nothing of the little interaction and finish my workout. Once I’m done, feeling PUMPED UP, I meet my sister and we walk downstairs to find the bathroom. As I turn my head curious to find what other equipment lay beyond my view from the first floor, my face turns bright red. There in front of me were 10-12 fully prepped squat racks occupied with people who actually knew what they were doing: huffing and puffing getting PUMPED, just not with a bench press bar. . . I squeeze my face into a cringe and can’t help but think back to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s relatives in the arms section who were nice enough not to interrupt a girl while she heinously embarrasses herself. I might as well have set up the treadmill for bench presses for good measure. Horrified, I 360ed and made an awkward too-fast-to-be-normal exit from my first and last visit to HEALTH GENESIS CLUB.