Why I'm not at the gym right now

I don’t like things that skitter. And by “things” I mean vermin. These objectionable entities include rodents of all kinds as well as any insects with enough legs and/or wings to propel themselves away from the many instruments of death I am wielding (fly swatter, stomping feet, poison spray, karate chops, etc.).

So you can imagine my horror at the gym yesterday when I spied a black ant creeping around the free weight area, just inches from my feet. The little bastard thought he was so smart, dressing in all black so he’d blend in perfectly with the industrial rubber flooring. But his ant camouflage was no match for me. I can spot wretched pests from a thousand yards (cockroaches from over a mile). I looked right into his beady little eyes and screamed at the top of my lungs, “DIE YOU LITTLE FUCKER!!” and stomped the shit out of him. Okay, I didn’t really yell that out in the middle of a crowded gym. But I really wanted to which is basically the same thing.

Vermin successfully eliminated, I continued with my workout on the other side of the gym—can’t be too safe. I selected a pair of free weights from the rack and put my bright orange workout towel on the floor by my feet as I did my first set. When I finished, I glanced down and witnessed the unthinkable: ants on my towel. Lots of them, skittering in and out of the folds, getting their vile ant filth all over the towel I use to wipe my face! But even before my brain could fully process this event, I saw something infinitely worse. The ants were all over my shoes. And not just down by the laces. Up near the opening, by my exposed skin!

Now I should probably mention that about a year and a half ago I had an exceptionally bad ant bite experience while walking my dog, Edgar. We always walk at night because it’s cooler. Well, Edgar stopped to poop (as dogs often do) in a particularly dark corner of someone’s front yard. Well, unbeknownst to me, while I was patiently waiting for him to finish his business I was standing square in the middle of an ant nest. The reality of this didn’t hit me until I was being bitten by roughly 40 ants, all at the same time. Over the next few days my ankles swelled to the size of softballs and itched so badly I had to ice them at night just to fall asleep. Good times.

So when I saw the ants on my shoes at the gym I reacted as any sane person would, screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK!?” (this time out loud) and adding to the spectacle by hopping around while swatting at my shoes with the towel. (In hindsight, probably not the greatest plan since it too was covered in ants.) 

Why were there ants all over the gym floor? Where did they come from? Did they get a good workout? These and other important questions may have been answered but I sure as hell wasn’t around to find out. The last thing I saw as I fled the premises was some poor maintenance dude, hunched with bug killer in hand, futilely scanning the black gym floor for camouflaged ants.

Jenny