It's All Working Out

Becoming unemployed is the perfect recipe to crawl into a ball and spend your days doing nothing.

If you want to watch season four of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, start-to-finish, bring plenty of popcorn.

If you want to eat an entire half-gallon of ice cream, don’t forget the hot fudge.

If you feel like a beer at 10:00am, enjoy!

If you are looking for a challenge, do them all at the same time.

Of course, if you feel like crying, there’s time for that too.

I, have done all of those, including the crying.

Fortunately, for me and my Calvins, my mornings have taken on a new schedule.

Working out.

As you might imagine, based on my references to ice cream and beer in the AM, you won’t be seeing any pictures of me in GQ anytime soon.

That being said, instead of sleeping in until Noon and not getting dressed until 2, I have chosen the Gym as my new workplace.

By 8am every weekday morning, I’m in the gym doing my 60-minutes on the eliptical machine -- even though the limit is 30.

I’m such a rebel.

That is followed by the 15 minute tour through the weight machines. 15 reps here, 12 there, do a couple of those, a little of these and BAM, my day is started.

One of my all-time favorite sports is people watching and there truly is no reality show better than reality itself.

If you don’t believe me, go to your local park, grocery store, diner and just sit back and watch. You’ll see drama... comedy... and plenty of REALITY!

My favorite place to people watch now is the gym.

In fact, I believe they could re-name my gym Noah’s Ark, because we have two of EVERYTHING.

Fat, skinny. Old, new. Men, women.

And that’s just the people who work there. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

A couple of weeks ago, a guy on the treadmill dropped his radio. So, like any unemployed guy looking to meet his next boss, I picked it up.

Before I could hand it to him, the 50-something man, notified me that perhaps I may have recognized him.

In my mind, I recognized him as the 50-something man, who should’ve given up his dreams of growing a full head of hair and just shave off the mullet in the back to match the glare on the top.

But before I had a chance to respond, the man told me that he was recently on the news for opening the first medical marijuana store in our state.

Wow, a real home-grown celebrity!

I promptly handed the man his radio as I watched my dreams of finding my new boss go up in smoke.

No need to fear, there were plenty of other reality stars in the gym.

There was the woman who stepped on the scale -- located in the middle of the gym -- was clearly unhappy with the results and promptly stepped off, removed her shoes and tried it again.

There was the man who was determined to lift more weight than he could handle -- snapping his head to the right and making a face like he’d been shot with each of the three draining reps he attempted.

We’ve got sweaty ones, determined to leave their mark on EVERY weight machine and ones with more tattoos than an NBA game.

I’ve seen leg warmers and dolphin shorts, walkmen and REO Speedwagon t-shirts. I miss the 80’s.

No matter what you are looking for, the gym has it.

Fortunately, my gym has plenty of eliptical machines too and I’m glad to say, it’s all working out.