"Gym" tales

The office has a gym. If you can call a room with two treadmills and two ellipticals that looks as if it was built for just that much a gym. I obviously can. This is the story of me and that gym.

A few months ago, my body was threatening to outgrow my most unflattering of clothes. I whined about it and the dude denied everything (he was glad of the opportunity to deny it in person, its sort of difficult to convincingly tell a person on chat – no, no, of course not, you are not growing fat). BUT, clothes don’t lie. So I decided to hit the above mentioned gym. But you cant keep yourself entertained for very long with just treadmills, ellipticals, a radio station that plays more ads than songs and a radio that goes silent every 30 seconds. So I improvised.

• I played songs on my phone. But it is difficult to keep up the tempo when Bob Dillan is asking you in that tone– How many roads must a man walk down…
• I tried aerobics on the gym floor. To radio ads. Not fun.
• I tried using stuff lying around the gym as weights. Worked brilliantly for a while. These metal things that are used to wall mount TVs? Very good for bicpes and triceps! But then someone had to come and mount the TV. 
• Which was good! So many channels! Non-stop songs! And so much increase in general knowledge. The storage layer in my brain now accommodates Chikni Chameli, Jalebi Bai and Disco going Anarkali. How else could I have met these delightful people?
• I raided the room next door for potential weights. Drums – nope, chairs – nope, drum stool – yay, Cisco APs – double yay! Took two of them. And giggled all the time I was exercising with them, thinking about what I used to do with Cisco APs in my past life. Feedback to Cisco, if anyone is listening – those white APs you make? Not so good for biceps. Put on a couple of kgs and then we’ll talk.
• Next day the drum room is locked. So I look around once more and spot the weighing machine. The one that consistently shows my weight as 23 kgs (damn it, did someone buy the moon-weight machine again?) I pick it up – perfect for biceps!
• I try filled up water bottles, they start out okay, don’t work so well after I have drunk half their weight.

I proudly reported all my innovations to the dude, who, probably in a desperate attempt to stop further conversation on the subject, told me to lift his nephew* for biceps. Which I couldn’t, he is too heavy, what with all the milk he has. Finally, the dude threatened to buy me a box of weights. Which would be really weird, I mean, imagine me dragging a handbag, a laptop bag, a clothes bag, a shoe bag AND a box of weights from the car to the gym. I begged and got a couple of days from him to see if I can make better arrangements. I mailed the office facilities and they said they’ll have the weights by the end of the week. See?? Poochne mein kya jaata hai!

From Monday, it’ll be back to mindless gymming. Who knows though, if someday someone forgets to lock the drum room…

　

*That little fellow may be growing up on the weirdest lullabys ever. After singing ba ba black sheep in all variations I could think of (Ba ba pink sheep, yes sir yes sir, 7 bags full. Ba ba the sheep still ended up distributing 3 bags full only, my head cannot do the distribution math AND sing at the same time, it can however generate a random number between one and 10), I was found singing the national anthem to him. He got all patriotic and "stood" in attention and refused to sleep. People laughed. I don’t know any songs – I whined. Whats wrong with Sheela ki Jawani – the Dude. I ignored him and sang Saare Jahan se Achcha. Even after I had assured him that Hindi hai hum (3 times) and vatan hai hindustaan hamara, he refused to sleep. I had a nagging suspicion that the problem may not be with the content but with the delivery, but I killed it.