Under her makeup her age can’t be seen.

First off and most importantly, thank you for all of your kind words regarding Meredith and her spelling bee! I love you guys. Please come over for dinner right now. I’m making this, and it smells like onion heaven. (That’s a very good thing.)

Okay.

My Thursday spinning class starts at 9:30. I have attended the class every week since Thursday, December 27th, which means it’s still a fairly new gig, but this is what I know: I LOVE it. I schedule appointments around it. I plan sports bra laundry around it. I love the instructor, I love her music, and I love the fact that I sometimes drip sweat onto the floor as I ride up a hill in the dark.

The place where I spin is right across the street from the girls’ school. On Thursdays, I tend to drop them off at around 8:40. I then park at the gym’s lot and drink hot tea until 8:50. I then enter the gym, sign up for a spot in the spinning studio, place my towels and my water on my favorite bike, and slowly warm up until the instructor arrives. At around 9:15, the studio is normally full of spinners. Although I haven’t really spoken to anyone, I always smile at the woman from Australia. I always stay far away from the older gentleman who is VERY outspoken about his belief that everyone should own a gun. (I have no idea how he manages to turn every topic of conversation into a gun control debate, but he does! It’s sort of like that whole Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, minus the fun, plus furrowed brows and paranoia.) I try to stick close to the tall blonde woman who seems to weigh 60 pounds. (Fun Fact: If you click on the tall blonde woman link and listen to the song, please know that I can’t sing along without choking.)

This lady? I do not like this lady. Let’s call her Coco, because she actually carries a Chanel mini-backpack to the gym.

CocoSpinster

Coco always arrives for class right around the time that the bikes are filling up, and she ALWAYS screams to her friends about These New People who are showing up too EARLY and reserving their bikes too EARLY and, “I come straight here after I drop off my kid! I can’t get here any earlier and all of these NEW people are showing up and taking all the bikes! What the HELL?!”

These are her friends.

ThreeStooges3

Their kids attend the same middle school as Coco’s, yet they somehow manage to arrive at class at least twenty minutes before her.

When Coco arrived to class last Thursday, all of the bikes were taken and SHE LOST HER MIND.

Coco: What the HELL?! IT WAS MY PLAN TO SPIN THIS MORNING!!! Who ARE all of these people?!

Friend #1: I know!

Friend #2: It’s disgusting.

(Really! She said it was disgusting! I can name at least 93 things that are more disgusting than people showing up a little early for a spinning class!)

Friend #3: Whoever put those towels on that bike hasn’t been here since I’ve been here. I say take it.

Coco then removed the water bottle and towels that someone else had placed on the bike, sat down, and began warming up—all while chomping gum and ranting about how ridiculous life can be.

Less than two minutes later, two gym employees entered the spinning studio with a guy who occasionally attends the class. Apparently, the towels and water bottle Coco had removed were his. The employees then BOUNCED Coco, and my heart filled with joy as she gathered her phone and her tiny backpack while yelling at the employees about All These People and how It’s Not Fair and You People Need to Do Something!!!

(Yes. My heart filled with joy. I’m not the greatest person and God isn’t finished with me yet or something (or other).)

The best part of all? After she stomped out and the door closed, Coco’s friends actually laughed about the whole thing. And Friend #2 spent the entire class shamelessly flirting with the guy who snitched on Coco.

He definitely wasn’t into it.

I matched (and sometimes outpaced) Friend #2’s ride until the final song ended, which I believe means that I won. And I’ll be back on Thursday. At 8:45. Because I can.

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26 thoughts on “Under her makeup her age can’t be seen.”

  1. Ha! I loved this – because I had a gym bully several years ago in a step training class, and like you, I was more fascinated than offended.

  2. you know I am related to not one, not two, but THREE Coco’s. Though actually it’s more Prada and Gucci, because Coco is a little 80’s, not in a cool way.

  3. BAH. I have mixed feelings about this story. I have EXTREME spin paranoia. The only time I’ve ever tried it is b/c my friend taught the class and she let me get there early to help me learn how to work the bike. And I only did it a few times and the whole time I was worried everyone else in there thought I didn’t belong.

    So, part of me thinks, “SEE! That’s why I don’t go!”

    But you’re in the class! So the other part of me is like, “GO, idiot. There are nice people too!”

    (My friend stopped teaching. I’ll probably never go. Even someone as nice as you couldn’t probably combat my fears of DOING IT WRONG.)

  4. HAHAHAHAHA! I laughed out loud, in my office, at my desk – but it’s okay, because my coworkers are used to that.
    I absolutely love that she got the boot.
    Best line of all: “He wasn’t into it.” hahahahahaha
    I am having a pretty good day -but this is just more humorous goodness. Thanks!

  5. There’s a woman who ends up on the treadmill next to me at lunch time. I have similar feelings towards her. She’s always reading a book on the Catholic Faith. I’ve never seen her smile. She talks incessantly on her cell phone. I wish I could bounce her.

    Way to go on finding that exercise that speaks to you!

  6. I just saved that recipe and am looking forward to making it. My mom used to make something similar growing up. And I would have felt the same way if I had a Coco in my life. I am sorry you do.

  7. I think Coco (AND her friends) need to take a class on gym etiquette (hell, LIFE etiquette), not spinning. Humph.

  8. I also spin once a week and LOVE it. I’m a regular and I have been banished to the back row where they keep the old, crappy bikes due to all the New Year’s Resolution people and my inability to get there earlier. I tell myself that it’s temporary and there are bigger problems in the world that are actually worth getting upset about. This? Not so much.

  9. LOL! I love this post! (Although I get slightly Coco-ish in January at my Step class. I don’t know how to nicely tell the new people “This isn’t Wii Step, up, down, up, down. I need space to twirl and jump and mambo, dammit! Move your step over!)

  10. Hahahahaha. I can’t do snobby people. This made me laugh so hard…I love how her friends turn on her when she gets booted. True friendship right there!

  11. Are you sure Coco’s name wasn’t really Regina George (Mean Girls reference)?

    And I think I have to tell you now, that after reading this post, I fell totally in love with you. Don’t be scared.

  12. I totally kind of thought mean horrible hateful things about the women in the yoga/pilates/zumba/name your fitness class of choice here who would show up with their jewelry and makeup and posse of friends and complain about all the new people. Because, you know, they were never new or anything. And we should never go outside of our comfort zone and try anything new. Or be anything but just like them.

    God just might be working on me a little too still.

    Did you find red lentils? Since, you know, this has been of most grave concern to me all day. (Not really. Okay maybe a little. Okay, so maybe after I left the comment on instagram I thought “Wait, did I get them from Trader Joe’s?” and then checked my cupboard and confirmed that I had and then felt silly for being so concerned over lentils)

  13. OMG – you *almost* make me want to try spin, if only for the entertainment factor. Unfortunately, at 4’10”, I don’t care how adjustable they are – I’m fairly certain there are no spin bikes for someone my height. So, I’ll happily stick to my treadmill (perhaps the local trail when it gets a bit warmer) and shred videos. :)

  14. OMG I am laughing out loud at my desk at work. I have run into a few folks like this at the gym – the most memorable was a couple that was doing alternating sets between two pieces of equipment, one of which I had on my workout plan that particular morning. Because they were, no joke, spending more than five minutes at the other piece of equipment, I sat down at the one I needed, adjusted the weight, and got started, at which point the female half of the couple STOMPS OVER and says “WE. ARE. USING. THAT.”

    I shrugged said “I thought we could trade sets since you are going between two sets of equipment,” finished my set, and let them have it back. And then did it again a minute later when they still hadn’t finished with the other equipment.

    I get it, I do, but at the same time, when there is only one pulley machine at the gym, eventually you learn to trade sets, right?

  15. Hateful people. I completely believe in karmic justice. I’m sure that Coco is being punished at the gym for her hateful attitude generally. And who needs “friends” like that?

  16. OMG I would so be spinning on the bike next to you thinking the EXACT same thing and then we’d go out for some chair and dish about it SO mean girls!!! Go Shannon!! There should totally be some Internet world care where we could all meet for tea/ coffee! I too LOL. And I am an elementary music teacher!!!!

  17. I’ve known Coco all my life, and she’s one ugly person. It made me so happy to hear Karma caught up with her right in front of you.

    Here’s something to ponder: Aren’t you glad Coco isn’t the Spin Class gun nut? It’s bad enough having either of them try to spoil an otherwise enjoyable morning, intolerable if they were in the same body.

    I vote for nicer people in the world. Looks like the ones who hang out here are it. Thank you.

    And I would love to come to your house for Mujaderra, but my crock pot has filled my house with garlic and onion smell all day and I’m staying home.

  18. What a jerk! Going to the gym can be so awkward at times…especially when you are new or haven’t gone in a while. I paid my dues…I don’t need to be in your click.

  19. Thanks for the Jim and Ingrid Croce video. I’ve been thinking of him lately, after finding an old songbook from the 70’s that belongs to my husband. Love his music…there’s the sweetest photo of him in the book–he’s sitting there holding his guitar, teary eyed. There’s also a photo of his adorable son…makes me sad just looking at the photos.

    Gone too soon. His son is a musician too, but you probably knew that.

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