Back Issue - Geishas and Man-Purses

Tuesday 04.19.05 [1:13 pm]
It's amazing the things you see at the gym without even trying. I've been going to my gym now for just over four years - I became a member when it opened in my neighbourhood. Over the years, you get to know the faces and habits of the regulars (see my previous post about Sweaty Girl). Today, I made some interesting observations. Okay, they were interesting to me and, those of you that have been to my gym and know the characters, will also find them interesting.
The Geisha was at the gym this morning. I saw her boyfriend working out when I was at the gym the other day (Sunday?) and she was no where in sight. He is a muscly Asian guy who drives a late-model Mercedes convertible with Ontario plates. She is a petite Asian girl who reminds me of a modern-day geisha. Dont' get me wrong - she's very pretty. But she's a bit...um...skanky, for lack of a better word. She's got very long blondy-red hair (she's Asian) that falls past her waist when it's in a ponytail. She wears very tiny booty shorts when she works out and she walks around the changeroom in a very tiny towel that barely covers her ass and high-heeled platform shoes (you know, the kind you see strippers wear on stage). A variation of her changeroom attire is a g-string, the high-heeled shoes and a face towel she uses to cover up her chest. I've actually arrived at the gym, walked by her boyfriend waiting in the lobby after he's finished working out, and walked in the changeroom and she's got all of her accoutrements laid out all over one counter - makeup, hair dryer, flat iron, clothes. She's usually on the phone. I've gone to work out for about an hour, gone back into the changeroom to put my stuff away and she's still half naked with her stuff still splayed out on the counter and her boyfriend is still waiting patiently (an hour later!) in the lobby. She was arguing with another girl when I walked into the changeroom today. I wanted to listen in but alas, felt my time would be better spent getting on the cross-trainer.
Another thing I noticed today were these three guys - and I didn't notice them because they were cute. They were probably 19 or 20 and they rolled into the gym like it was a club on Saturday night. One guy had what I thought were his eyeglasses on backwards behind his head. He and his friend got on the bikes in front of me and I realized, as he turned his glasses around, that they were sunglasses and he was wearing them while he pedaled away on his bike. If that wasn't bad enough, his friend, a stocky Asian guy, was wearing a purse slung across his chest. A PURSE. It wasn't even a bag to put his CD player or iPod in. It was a freaking GUCCI purse. I tried desperately not to laugh - actually, I looked around desperately to find someone to laugh with me. What was worse was that the third guy slinked up to these two and he was also wearing a purse across his chest - LV, though. Now, I'm all for equality but at least get purses that are more manly than the ones they had! Doesn't Hugo Boss make man-purses or something?
My final observation is that guys like to advertise that they are firefighters. I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier. There are a couple of regulars that I always see and they always have their firefighter shirts on. I don't know if they have a stockpile of them or not but they always have the same one on. I guess it's only natural in the meat-market atmosphere of Fitness World that people strut and preen like peacocks. Human nature is fascinating, isn't it?