Ask anyone you know how they feel about the gym and if they are normal human beings their response should be “I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns.” There are a few weirdos out there that actually enjoy going to the gym. Typically, I don’t hang out with those people.

Regardless of whether you hate it or love it, for most of us it’s a necessary evil.

It’s required for me because I like cake and burritos more than humanity in general. I would eat carbs every day if my body would dispose of them before they make my butt their permanent home. But, my body secretly hates me; so instead, the carbs go right to my problem areas.

I recently got off an excessively strict diet of starvation. Apparently, I’m the kind of person who needs extreme measures to get minimal results; makes complete sense. Now three months and 36 pounds later, I can afford to look into the mirror without crying. If I worked this hard to starve myself skinny I should stay this way, which means going to the gym.

The other night I tried out a strange machine with an identity crisis as it wanted to be an elliptical machine, but also a skiing machine that goes nowhere. Let’s just call it a “mistake” and move on. This machine creates sweat after a mere 5 minutes as well as mass confusion in your mind. Sounds like a drug they sold in the 70s. The foot holders go back and forth like you’re walking, but at one point (especially if you’ve been drinking) you start to feel as though you are going backward. In reality, you are going nowhere. You are holding on for dear life so you don’t fly out the back and end up starring in a Youtube video that goes viral.

After 30 minutes, you would think dismounting the machine would be easy, but when your legs feel like jelly and the foot holders have an over-the-foot-pocket-holder thingy, it’s not as easy as it seems. Like any other night, I got one foot safely out and steady on the ground while I attempted to remove the other foot. At that split second, removing my second foot allowed the machine to swing back the other pedal and it slammed into my fragile ankle. Its official; I am now bruised and beaten by an in animate object.

My friends did not have sympathy. Instead they said, “Let’s go see what other things we can do here to make ourselves look like idiots.”

Toward the end of what you would mockingly call a “workout session,” we ended up at this machine that you use to do “dips”. First, when someone says the word dip I say, “Where’s the chips?” I have not familiarized myself with the term dip in any other way. I guess this particular maneuver is meant to help you build your triceps by lifting your own body weight; sounds excessive. I do enough when I’m lifting food to build my triceps.

The friend in the best shape hopped up on the machine and started bench pressing himself like nobody’s business. It soon turned out to be everybody’s business, because the ladies in the gym were forming a crowd. How was I supposed to do the same exercise after that display of awesomeness?

Well, I discovered there is a cheater board that secretly pulls out from the machine and allows you to adjust your lifting resistance to your body weight. I said “Put it on 200,that should work,” but no one listens to me. Instead he put it on 100 and I quickly found myself feeling the burn as I tried my best to lift my body with my tiny arms. If you go down too far and inevitably start laughing at your dire circumstance, you don’t have enough muscle to pull yourself up again. If you get off the machine at the bottom, the cheater piece will shoot up knocking you in the face. I was forming a new kind of crowd. The one’s that like improve comedy routines.

Embarrassingly, with the help of my friends (and notice that word is plural), we were able to get the chair back into the up position with me still on it. I was stranded nine feet in the air with legs and arms going in every direction trying to hold my plump body long enough for one of my friends to release the weights. I felt like a trapeze artist without a net, but I looked like an octopus praying for a quick death.

My conclusion; going to the gym is meant to make people feel inadequate for an hour each day.

Some machines try and cut you off at the legs while others help draw attention to the fact that you don’t have any bodily coordination. I was living in perfect torment and exceedingly self-conscious at the end of the night. There was only one thing to do at this point. I bought a membership and left.

What? They told me I could have a free T-shirt.

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