Walking forever

I was inspired early this morning to get up, complain a bit to my hubby about him always going to the gym, then declare I was going to the condo gym and there was no stopping me. Like he really cared -- this way he had the green light that I wasn't going to guilt him into staying at home with me and our kitties and he could go to the gym.

I waited for him and walked with him towards the condo gym and the parking lot. We kissed goodbye. There was no one in the condo gym, which is how I like it.

After about 30 minutes of walking (I planned for an hour, thank you very much), I noticed someone walking by the windows. I looked up to see a chubby old man staring at me. Hmmm....I thought. Kinda creepy, but I doubted he was going to come into the gym.

Then I heard the click-click of the electric key opening the condo gym door.

Keep reading, keep listening to your music, keep walking, don't act like you know he's in there, I kept telling myself.

Admittedly, I tend to over react to things, but after watching Dateline's feature on men praying on young girls in chat rooms looking for sexual encounters, and me looking like I'm in my teens with my hair pulled back, my over reacting mind started thinking of several really bad scenes, all of which ends with my screaming "Hi-ya!" and kicking him where the sun don't shine.

Our condo gym is rather pathetic and consists of two ellipticals (my least favorite), one treadmill, one stationary bike (hurts my delicate bottom), and some weight machine thing that I wouldn't know how to use if my life counted on it. Next to the treadmill is an elliptical, and behind both are the other elliptical and the stationary bike.

I heard the old man behind me, doing whatever he was doing to the elliptical. Then, suddenly, he was next to me, trying to use the elliptical next to me. He was sitting on the hump at the back of the elliptical, trying to reach his little old man legs to the foot platforms. This is not how you use an elliptical. You stand on it.

I kept telling myself, do not look, do not look, do not look.

He then mumbled something, but since I had my earbuds in, I "couldn't" hear him. He somehow realized that he was supposed to stand up on the foot platforms, so he did that for a bit, swinging his little legs back and forth, but never going in a circle. He quickly bored of that and moved back to his sitting position.

After the elliptical, the old man moved onto the weight machine, but he was so far out of my side view range, that I'm not sure what he was doing. He moved behind me after that, using the stationary bike and whatever else (I really didn't want to know).

I figured I was safe because since I wasn't moving my butt off the treadmill until he left, and he pretty much exhausted all his condo gym choices, he would have to leave.

That's when I heard, "Excuse me?"

Sigh........why now? Why not just leave and we'll pretend like this never happened and I won't tell the HOA people that you were the one who sat on the elliptical and killed it because it wasn't made to withstand a rolly polly old man on its hump? Just go. Leave. Go eat some donuts and talk to other old men!

I turned and looked at him, but I didn't take out my earbuds or stop walking, which was meant to be an indication that I didn't really appreciate him interrupting me and he better have a good reason for doing so -- like a heart attack or something.

"How many miles have you walked?" he asked, all old man smiles.

"I dunno," I said and looked away.

"You just keep walking and walking and walking, have you gone 5 miles?" he asked.

Friendly ol' me said, "I really don't know," while flipping up my magazine to show him all my fabulous walking stats.

"It seems like you've walked forever!" he said.

"I'm walking for an hour," I said and turned away with as much finality as I could muster without looking too much the freak.

He decided to leave then. I'll never understand why old men have a fascination with me except that Dateline says they like young, innocent girls. Oh wait, but I don't really know if he was a creepy. Essentially it doesn't really matter. I could have taken him. Or I could have kept walking until my husband came home and saved me.