To the Girl Who Was Working Out Next to Me at the Y Last Night

I’m at the tail end of nursing my Achilles back to health after a bout of tendinitis left me sidelined from running all winter. Lately I’ve been increasing my jog-walks and the Achilles has been feeling better and better, but my trainer has thrown in some elliptical workouts as well until I’m back in running action. Thus, I’ve begrudgingly trudged over to the Y to elbow my way to a machine in the cramped, stuffy cardio cave so I can sneak in workouts longer than the 30 minutes the equipment is programmed to allot me. While I was there last night, ellipticising it up, a girl got onto the machine next to me and commenced her workout. The rest of this post is dedicated to her.

Dear Hipster-Emo “I have plugs in my earlobes because there’s no way I’ll grow out of this look in 10 years and totally regret having scarred my ears, nor will I regret these unfortunate tattoos on my body” Ave Rat,

Normally I’m not one to judge people working out at the gym unless they’re doing something especially idiotic, like working out in a pastel polo shirt with a popped collar or reading a book while half-heartedly squeezing their thighs together on the vag machine for 30 minutes (has anyone else noticed that only women use that thing? They might as well extend an open invitation to everyone in the gym to look at their sweaty crotch as it’s repeatedly splayed open and shut). You, despite your carefully put together emo-hipster workout attire (complete with bright purple throwback sneaks), are no exception. I don’t care what you’re doing; I’m focused on my own workout and my music and letting my thoughts wander.

That is, until you kept farting and decimating every bit of air around me.

And don’t try to deny it and pretend it wasn’t you. I’ve constructed a bar graph charting the prevalence of fart smells in the area and where they appeared to be coming from:

100% scientifically accurate

There was no fart stench when I began my workout, nor did I notice anything from the dude two machines over; it was only after you began your regimen did my nose get bombarded by the noxious fumes emanating from your colon.

And these weren’t “Oops, I let one squeak out ha ha” farts; these were clearly “I have to take a huge shit” farts. I know you were clenching your cheeks together to prevent your shorts from taking a trip to Browntown, but trying to shake out a couple of SBDs to relieve pressure and buy yourself some time like Andy Dufresne shaking out chunks of wall from his pant leg in the prison yard, Shawshank style, so you can finish your 30 minute workout without having to stop for a bathroom break is JUST EFFING RIDICULOUS.

I would have gladly kept a teary, stink-clogged eye on your machine and prevented anyone from stealing it so you could run to the locker rooms and drop the kids off at the pool. But no, instead of succumbing to your plight and owning up to the fact that you were compacted up to your chin in feces, you stubbornly soldiered on, intent on finishing your sad little workout because getting your sweat on, whether it’s from the actual exercise or your struggle to not shit yourself, was clearly more important than being a decent human being and not gassing your neighboring exercisers to death.

You let a fog of farts tumble out of your ass on four separate occasions, forcing me to literally plug my nose and mouth so I wouldn’t have to smell or taste the foulness emanating from your bowels (I will never complain about breath control exercises when swimming again). I glared at you each time, getting dangerously closer to giving up and asking you point blank if you needed to stop so you could take a shit. Eventually, though, you finished ass-aulting everyone and completed your workout, hurriedly cleaned the machine, and stiffly puttered out of the room with obviously clenched buttocks. Thank God I didn’t use the locker room; my contents would have to be burned because there’s no way I’d be able to get the stink you were undoubtedly going to unleash in there out of my belongings.

In closing, I’d just like to point out what a magnificent asshole you are for farting throughout your workout instead of banishing that toxic abomination to the sewers where it belongs. I hope the whopping 200 calories you burned was enough to offset the psychological trauma you inflicted on half the members of the Y yesterday. The facility already has a reputation for being kind of ghetto, and your disregard for human decency and the most basic sense of hygiene isn’t helping matters.

Fuck you. Next time just go take a shit.

Sincerely,

Me