Gym Room Etiquette

I just finished eating the least spicy Thai food I've ever had in my life. Highly disappointing. Now, that's not what I want to talk about here. I was just so bummed, I couldn't let it die.

What I want to actually blog about is my lack of gym room etiquette.

Several days ago I was working out in the cardio area - walking on a treadmill and contemplating how I would ever make the switch from walking to running. I have my ipod shuffle on and I'm avoiding watching the clock, allowing myself to watch a bad MTV show with the closed caption on.

The guy on the machine next to mine hops off his machine, cleans it and leaves. Good gym etiquette. A woman gets on and starts running. Next to her is another woman, a younger one who is college age. She's running, too.

I can't remember when her friend came in, before or after the man left the machine next to mine, but the younger woman is on her machine chatting away happily with her friend. Not exactly the best gym etiquette, but no one seems bothered by it. That is except for the woman who has replaced the guy that was running next to me.

After about 15 or 20 minutes of chatter, the woman finally just starts to tell the girls off - without even looking at them. I couldn't hear much, but she was getting louder and louder each time the girls responded to her. Eventually, turning up my ipod just wouldn't drown her out - unless I wanted to permanently screw up my hearing. She was so upset about this woman's bad gym etiquette, but she wasn't much better with the rude and very snide comments.

I was really amazed that she was so rude to the girls. I didn't even know they'd done anything horrendously bad. I know all about wiping a machine down, but talking to a friend and running on a machine for more than half an hour? I'd been on my machine 40 minutes when the woman started in on this girl.

I didn't see anything wrong with what the younger woman was doing. But Maybe it's because I had on headphones, as did most of the people in the room, but I just wasn't bothered by this younger woman.

Maybe I just need to brush up on my gym room etiquette.