No one ever tells you about the life-threatening potential hazards of the gym. I’m not talking about the bullshit of twisting ankles, being crushed to death by a weight or falling over from exhaustion. I’m talking about the explosion hazards, a predicament I found myself in just last night.
Let me set the stage…Thursday night I was 20 minutes into my usual kickboxing class. I was at that point of my workout when I’ve passed the optimistic “Oh I am so pumped for this class” and sailing into the “I could die right here right now" (quick turnover time). So there I was, jab, jab, punch, knee, side kicking away and then a very potent, gassy smell hit my nose. Well that’s not normal, was my first thought, but I took a quick survey of the room and no one else was responding to it. So back to my jab, jab, punching when I heard the woman behind me ask the woman next to her if she smelled it and so naturally I whipped around and asked them myself (no need to be embarrassed about evesdropping). Then they both just passed it off, so I pulled myself together and got back to the jab, jab, punching when I noticed the instructor looking around the huge stereo at the front, sniffing. No luck there, then she looked up at the huge heater/air conditioner that hangs from the middle of the room, and nothing there either.
Internally, I was thinking, oh crap. Here it goes. No need to wait for December to see if the Myans were right. I should have listened to myself and opted out of class tonight. Death by gym class just seemed too obnoxious. In the midst of my personal conversation I spotted a woman who worked at the front desk dodging side kicks and jabs, and say that we all needed to get out and….well that’s all I heard. I swooped up my jacket, water bottle and keys and ran out the door. No need for pleasantries to let others go in front…every man for themselves in this situation and I wasn’t going to get blown up to smitherines in the gym because I let the older people pass.
Everyone started to congregate outside in front of the gym, and right by the door, which I thought was just dumb. Hello people! Move a little further away from the doors. In the event of an explosion, you’ll all get wiped out. It took a little longer than expected to get everyone out of the gym. You’d think that they have a system, like turn off all the tvs and make an announcement over the loud speaker, but instead the workers were trying to get everyone’s attention and tell them they needed to evacuate (mind you this time, I’m already outside, continually making the distance between me and the front door greater and greater).
Well, I stood there for about five minutes and then realized, this was a dumb plan. By the time they decided if it was safe to go back in, or if the fire fighters were the ones to decide that, we could be here a while. So really me standing here isn’t really doing much, and I should just call it a night.
At Crunch, there’s only a one lane entrance on one side of the building and then a one lane exit one the other side (and there’s also a Chinese food restaurant that’s attached to the gym—cruel, I know). So naturally, there’s a small traffic jam trying to get out. As much as I didn’t want to, I was just flirting with disaster. One spark and warren (my car) and I would have done some barrel rolls over Veterans Blvd and land in the parking lot of AAA.
Luckily, nothing happened, and I was able to drive away from Crunch in one piece. Phew. But I will keep my distance until I know it's been inspected and given the a-ok from the proper authorities.
#Iwillknockyouoverifyoublocktheexitinapotentialexplosion
#andifidiethenillcomebackandhauntyourass
No comments:
Post a Comment