Anthill

I feel like an absolute slug sitting all day, every day, even though I do love my internship.  So I ambitiously went to Bally’s Total Fitness because I saw an ad for a membership deal.  I figured it would help get me moving and active again, since that pretty much ended with the 9-5 job and winter on the East coast.  So I went to the address and found the room number and punched B1 on the elevator. 

The elevator doors opened to white, smudged walls, grey carpet, and the occasional cockroach, dead on its back.  A sign next to one of the many handle-less grey doors said in messy handwriting, “UPS DON’T DELIVER HERE PLEASE CALL 2023317889” I followed the maze of asymmetrical hallways, dotted occasionally with locked grey doors, around the entire level, trying to find out where the throbbing aerobics music was coming from, only to end up where I started: in the elevator lobby with white walls, gray carpet, and dead cockroach.  I almost gave up, punched the elevator button, and left, but then I saw a small call box next to one of the doors.  So I punched the white button.  Nothing happened.  So I knocked on the door.  It opened.

Have you ever kicked an anthill and watched the ants explode chaotically out of it?  Or owned an Ant Farm and seen how sometimes the ants huddle in one particular corner and rarely venture out to the rest of the tunnels they’ve created?  This was the impression I got when the door opened to a long room crowded with black exercise machines, colored lights, throbbing music, mirrors and an anthill of professionals in sleek outfits in various stages of their heavy-duty workouts.  It reminded me of the scene in the first Matrix where Trinity meets Neo at the party.  Quite a contrast to the muffled grey-and-white halls just beyond the door. 

I decided not to join, and not only because the price seemed steep: I didn’t want to feel like, well, an ant.  Something about being trapped in an unnamed basement behind handle-less grey doors with strangers focused on tightening their abs, however energizing the music and however well coiffed the patrons, felt…wrong.  I love the treadmill, but I don’t want to be buried with it. 

On an unrelated note, here's a good way to know when your marriage is on the rocks .