Athleticism Later in Life: Part Two

I think it was because of the following two experiences that swore me off of going to the RB during my days at BYU, which resulted in my Freshman 15 that lingered and lingered:

RB Experience No.1

It is my freshman year at BYU on a wintery afternoon.  My roommate Elizabeth and I decide to go work out.  We go to the RB and change into our BYU issue, which is a horrible outfit BYU students are required to wear when using the school's gym facility at the Fieldhouse to undoubtedly thwart any unclean thoughts one might have about any fellow gym goer: a huge, baggy grey t-shirt and ill fitting navy blue drawstring sweat-shorts.  Their plight is undeniably successful.  Nary a date is ever made at the RB.  Clad in our most unflattering garb, we head to the Fieldhouse to work out but find the gym is being used by a grunting weight-lifting class and we are told to come back later.  We go back to the RB, retrieve our stuff from our lockers, and wear the icky issue back to our dorm with plans to return in an hour.  An

 hour turns into several hours.  I meet Elizabeth back at the Fieldhouse with about 40 minutes before it and the RB closes.  We work out and return to the RB to turn in our BYU issue with about 2 minutes to spare.  To my horror, I realize, unlike Elizabeth, I did not bring clothes to change back into.  If I do not give back the potato sack shirt and flub exposing shorts in 2 minutes, I will not get my ASB card back (which buys my food and gets me into my dorm building) and I will be slapped with a fatty fine, which at this point in the year, I cannot afford to pay.  We hear the RB worker jingle her keys.  Elizabeth hands me her sweatshirt.  It is not a big sweatshirt, but it is something.  I do the only thing I can do: I take off my BYU issue and put on the sweatshirt.  I pull it down as far is it will go, which barely covers my bottom and shuffle to the desk where I, red-faced, return the issue and receive my precious ASB card.  And then I book it all the way from the RB to Helaman Halls in the snow, wearing nothing but a sweatshirt and a smile, with a hysterical Elizabeth trailing behind.  I am too embarrassed to return to the RB after this.  Thus ends my days of working out my freshman year.

RB Experience No. 2

My sophomore year I decide to brave the RB and due to an identity crisis of sorts, I sign up for a ballet class, much to my friends and roommates' glee.  If you know me, and actually, you don't even have to know me well, really, to see where the humor in this lies.  I am not graceful.  I am not dainty.  I am not tall and skinny.  I am of average height and lean towards the "big-boned" side of the population.  I am boyish.  But this is something I want to do, as I believe it will help me become less of a tom-boy and more feminine, which means more dates, which as you might be able to tell, is my big focus at this point in my life.  So I buy my leotards, my tights and ballet shoes: requirements for this beginning ballet class.  I don't remember if I modeled them or just held them up their packages, but whatever happened, it brings several of my friends to their knees, clutching their stomachs, with giggle-induced tears streaming down their faces.  Merely the thought of me at a ballet bar gives them just enough juice to get them going.  Luckily for both them and me, I'm pretty thick-skinned.  I walk into the RB for my first class with my head held high, wearing my leotards and tights on underneath a pair of overalls.  I walk into the studio and find I am surrounded by stretching, slick haired x-ballerinas that just want "a refresher" and two fat guys who are taking the class as a joke, but wearing the leotards nonetheless, which definitely isn't worth it in their case.  The class begins and of course, I am horrible, but I stick with it.  I go to the second and the third and maybe the fourth class and it is when I realize that the two fat boys are better than me that I finally turn in my withdraw slip to the instructor, who doesn't look surprised at all.  I am shocked that a "What took you so long?" does not escape her pretty little ballerina lips.  But it is too late to simply withdraw.  If I drop out now, I risk having an "I" for incomplete on my transcript.  I don't care.  I take the "I", I walk out of the RB and never look back. 

To be continued...