And isn't it amazing that you can ride the stairmaster with your foot stuck so far down your throat?

Ridiculously early this morning, I dragged myself to the gym for a quick workout. I had planned to run, but decided instead to use the elliptical machine. Unusual for this early hour, all of the ellipticals with arm-movement upper-body-working thingies were in use.

In my early morning brain fog, I wandered over to a non-arm-moving machine and examined its features. The middle-aged man on the next machine struck up chit-chat with me, and since I vaguely recalled chit-chatting with him before, I smiled and responded. Unlike my beloved former gym in Denver, I haven't gotten to know a soul at this new place, because I go sporadically and unpredictably, my schedule doesn't allow me to attend many group classes, and I'm typically there before 5:30 in the morning when anyone else crazy enough to be working out is still three-quarters asleep.

Anyhoo (there's a story in here, I promise, but first I have to change tenses), Middle Aged Gym Dude ("MAGD") starts chatting, so I chat back. I say something about liking the arm-movement-thingie machines better, and he says the really hard ones are the stairclimbers with no arm rests, on which you have to work hard to balance. I toss off a comment to the effect that with my lousy eyes and balance, I'd probably be on the floor within 5 minutes of trying such an apparatus. He laughs, I start my workout, end of chit-chat.

Thirty or so minutes later, there's a tap on my sweaty arm. I peel my eyes off the morning news and try to locate the source of the intrusion. It's MAGD. He says to me, in a low and conspiratorial tone, "I just wanted to tell you that I think it's great that with your . . . limitations . . . that you're in here doing this." I am dumbstruck, unsure at first that I've heard him correctly, and then I mumble something about "thanks" and "flattered" and he mercifully leaves.

And I am left absolutely shaking in annoyance and confusion and simmering almost-anger. I wrack my brains, trying to remember if I've ever mentioned my "limitations" to him at any prior early-morning moment, or whether his delightful comment was based purely on my just-uttered mention of poor vision and my ponytail-revealed hearing aids. Meanwhile, I pound away at the machine, increasing speed and resistance to try to sweat out my irritation.

WTF?! And what is so freaking special about riding the elliptical machine? I recognize that he was trying to say something nice, but to my (flawed) ears, it sounded like "oh, you're such a special little disabled girl! Look at how you get up all early and stuff and then stand on the little machine and move your feet up and down over and over and over again, despite your terrible limitations."

I mean, a f*cking hamster can do that!

Comments

[Michele Friedner]

Hi there Madeline--

I have been meaning to start checking out your blog more regularly as it's a nice break from the grind of all my heavy theoreticsl (and boring) reading. Did you guys register for all your wedding gifts? (I am trying to decide what to do about that right now...) Your honeymoon sounded awesome-- I am so jealous of the climbing. Do you go indoor/gym climbing at all?

Amd did you finish A Fine Balance yet? It's so depressing, isn't it?

Take care, and looking forward to more posts,
Michele

[sarah]

found yr blog thru the confused climber's blog
cracking up over your hamster analogy
thanks to chemo, i've got a shaved head serving as a big neon sign that says, "sympathetic looks and awkward comments welcome 24/7!"
the urge to punch well-meaning folk is hard to resist
but then i think, "gosh, good for them! going out of their way like that - how brave!"