Went to Zumba class #5 yesterday. The following contains pieces from classes 4 & 5 without regard to continuity or location but since I’m in a dissociative state, you might as well be too. Driving to class last night, I pull into the parking lot of the IOP rec center and all the oxygen leaves my body. Initially shocked, I realize my cells are like the kid who’s been bullied too many times by the same kids in the neighborhood so he runs at first sight of them.
I stop at the desk to check off my name on the three pages of registered Zumbaronians but the receptionist is speaking to one of the other class members. I wait patiently, she looks up at me like a fan of the reality show “an Idiot Abroad” and says with a smirk, “I’ll sign you in”. How can she already know my name? Then, Wow, I think. I’m not even in the room, and I’m embarrassed already. I’ve only been to Zumba twice and the entire IOP rec center knows who the fat guy is taking the Zumba class.
Waiting for class to start. Lady next to me says, “first time?” “Yes”, I lie. Dale gives you quite a good workout, she says. She must be the cemetery tour guide, I think. “These are graves, these are tombstones”. What would I say to newbies a year from now I think? “When you get out of here, call home and have them remove all guns, knives and drugs from your home”. “This is fun, are all your premiums current?” ”
Class begins. Why do gyms/dance/fitness/aerobics rooms have wall to wall mirrors? I googled it. There’s an entry for each one of those. One reason is it distorts the size of the rooms by making them look bigger. I know this to be true because each week, I have run backwards into the wall, my high score being 3 times, the last time so hard I knocked the wind out of myself. But I digress. I think the mirrors are a variation of “does my ass look fat in these blank”? Mine looks like an old dominion 18 wheeler truck backing out of a narrow downtown residential driveway ripping the piazza off a charleston single house while running over a tricycle. And thanks for that image from three separate directions.
And why are workout clothes so tight? I do now understand why some people prefer the front row
Min 0-15. As I enter my usual dissociative state it’s starting to have a familiar comforting feeling like macaroni & cheese, meditation, alcohol or drug abuse or the delusions from a major depressive episode
Min 15-27 I’m actually starting not only to recognize some of these steps, but name them in my head- there’s the “dog peeing on a fire hydrant while running” and the “heel to toe DUI sobriety test for drag shows only”. (This is how I did well in school, it helps me keep up)
Min 27-30. I swear I am dancing to a disco Hispanic version of the theme song to Gilligans Island. I know, you young’uns are gonna have to you tube the song, folks my age just peed a little.
Min 45. Lovely lady next to me says, “I wish my husband could come”. “TMI”. I I think. When the Cialis commercial with the two of them in two separate bathtubs first came out I told Leah, “if that stuff really works, they’d be in the same bathtub”
Min 46-58. I wanna take a class taught by a woman dual certified in tantric yoga and Zumba. (Yes, this single thought occupied me for the remaining twelve minutes)
Class ends. “I am the Walrus, goo goo g’joob”
copyrite. Lawrence Laddaga 2013
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