i am not your mother

...but, sometimes, in the gym? The maternal instincts come out.

Sometimes it's mom rage, triggered by people who think their mommy does in fact work there, and therefore they don't have to pick any of their own shit up. Oh, sure, leave your dumbbells all over the floor and your plates still loaded on the barbell or machine. Push the benches all over the place and don't return them to where they belong. Take equipment out of the stretching area and into the weight room, or vice versa, and leave it strewn around so the next person who needs it has to search the whole gym. For extra lulz, do put your dumbbells back but mis-pair them. It's okay. I'm sure someone will be along to clean up after you directly. I think I observed the pinnacle of this yesterday when someone actually left their used towel draped over the safety in the squat rack. The gentleman before me in the rack had his own towel--and it's strictly one to a customer--so I know it wasn't his. He, however, didn't attempt to remove it. I did. I'm sorry, but having some idiot's probably MRSA-ridden sweaty towel inches away from my bare leg when I'm about to squat breaks my concentration, okay? I gingerly picked it up by my forefinger and thumb and draped it elsewhere, cursing other people's inconsideration and entitlement the whole time. No excuse for that. Nobody wants your cooties. God.




But sometimes my mommy instincts come out in a kinder, gentler way. The other night I was in the stretching area and observed a young man doing box jumps. Onto a step with--and I counted--12 risers. In front of a giant plate glass window. On the second floor. While holding kettlebells. I was quite distracted from doing Pigeon (or Swan) pose by this, because every synapse in my brain was yelling "THAT'S NOT SAFE!!!" In all caps like that, I swear. My brain gets very Kanye-esque in these situations. In approximately 1/10th of a second, all possible ways that this could go wrong had filed themselves in my frontal lobe. He was going to miss the step and come down wrong, (at best) spraining and (at worst) breaking an ankle. He was going to trip and fall forward right through the window*** and, y'know, die. He was going let one of those kettlebells go and take out the chick stretching on the mat behind him. There seemed like no way this was going to end well. But the YMCA employees apparently had no problem with it, whether philanthropic or just liability-wise. And, really, it wasn't up to me to go over and say, "Sweetie, I am very sure your vertical leap is important to you, but wouldn't you like to move that step somewhere safer? And take a coupla risers out? And make sure there isn't anyone 8 inches away from your back swing with those weights?" Don't think I didn't think about it though. Including calling him "sweetie." As it turns out, he was still jumping without mishap when I went to change. Hopefully his ankle and the woman behind him's skull are still intact even as we speak.



xoxo

***yes, yes, I DO know the Y is probably smart enough to have safety glass that would withstand a 180lb teenager holding 8 pound kettlebells crashing into it. I still didn't like the looks of that.