So in a moment of intense procrastination, I decided to start my own blog. Many will say, “Why bother? We hear you bitch all the time anyway.” And some loser will inevitably say, “Aren’t you just copying off Derrick?” To them I would reply, KISS MY ASS! Now that that’s out of my system, my reasons for creating a blog are as follows: ONE: I love to talk, and my friends probably get sick of hearing every detail of my life, so I decided to find a more public forum to vent, where people have a choice of whether or not to hear me, as opposed to my friends who are forced to stick their fingers in their ears and hum. TWO: After attempting to live vicariously through Derrick, I decided that homeboy’s kind of dull. For one thing, he’s always yapping about the damn Tour de France. Yeah, Lance Armstrong, nice guy I’m sure, but really, who cares? In fact, biking in general is kind of dull. It’s ok for a hobby if you want to ride through the woods collecting ticks, and it’s ok as a mode of transportation when you’ve been kicked off campus and don’t have a car. But as an obsession? Completely lame. If it don’t have an engine, it don’t interest me. (and yes, the grammatical errors were on purpose). Anyway, biking’s a snooze. Call me when football season starts. In any event, I’m not copying Derrick’s idea, just borrowing it, and making it my own. Which is completely different.

Anyway, I figured I’d start my first blog by mentioning something that’s been bugging the crap out of me for a couple of weeks. The gym. I hate the gym. I hate working out, but seeing as one of the only ways I can escape the house this summer is going to the YMCA to get my sweat on (and plus it happens to be healthy, or something), I drag my ass to go work out at least four times a week. And it was then I realized that some of the most disgusting things in the world, can be found at your local YMCA. Here are the main disgusting things I’ve found/seen.

NUMBER ONE: The gross old lady with cellulite and varicose veins walking around the locker room BUTT ASS NAKED.

Now maybe when you’re old you just don’t care. I’ve heard this happens in men’s locker rooms too, but guys do that kind of thing in general. Women do not. At least they’re not supposed to. But whenever I go to the locker room, there’s inevitably some old, doddering bag who just got out of the “aqua aerobics for seniors” class, peeling off her flowered, skirted swimsuit, or searching for her industrial size bra. Now I like to think of myself as a tolerant person (except when it comes to children, stupid people, and assholes), but I simply cannot deal with seeing another wrinkled old lady slothing around the locker room.

NUMBER TWO: Nasty, sweaty, smelly men (and women) who use the weight machines, smear their sweat all over them, and then leave, without wiping the damn thing off.

Now if you told someone to go sit in a puddle of someone else’s sweat, most people, especially these middle class, middle age, stick-permenantly-in-their-behinds, type people that work out at the Y, would say “I don’t think so.” So what makes people think that I’ll come prancing along and cheerfully throw myself onto a machine covered with their sweat? The Y places bottles of spray antiseptic stuff, on ALL the machines. They provide towels for free. They post signs that say “wipe off your damn machine.” (Okay, so not verbatim, it is the Y after all). Anyway, they do everything besides play a tape that says "wipe down your machine" over and over. And yet these people still go about spreading their nasty-nast all over. And some have the nerve to give me a “what, you think you’re cleaner than me? Too good to sit in my sweat?” look when I wipe down a machine that they’ve just been on. Well guess what, asshole. I AM too good to sit in your sweat, and just because I’m just as gross and sweaty as you, doesn’t mean I want to soak myself in your sweat too. I wasn’t so uptight about this at the beginning of the summer. I would wipe down my machine when I was done, but I didn't bother doing so before I got on it. Then one day in organic chemistry class, I noticed the back of my legs were itching a lot. I wear long pants almost all the time because in lab we have to, and in class it’s always cold, so I knew it wasn’t some kind of chemical. This went on for a few days, until I couldn’t take it, and so I asked my mom (she’s a doctor, for those of you who don’t know) what was wrong. The first thing she says is “have you been wiping down the equipment at the gym?” Turns out I got a RASH from some sweaty bastard who didn’t wipe off all his bacteria filled sweat! A frickin’ rash! Ugh. I HATE skin stuff,; bumps and fungi and all that on other people make me gag, so having a rash myself grosses me out immensely.

In fact, I can’t go on. The thought of this stuff is making me itch. I’m going to put some more rash cream on. Ask me later if you want to hear more gross gym stuff.