If I had to name one single thing that I missed about my life in New York, it would be my wonderful New York gym. It was just a few blocks from our apartment, loaded with all of the newest and nicest equipment, and basically always empty. Sure, the completely saturated workout facility market in New York must be tough on the owners, but it worked in our favor. I am told that John Travolta worked out at our gym, though I never saw him there and although it doesn’t seem like he spends a lot of time on the treadmill. In any case, it was nice.
Our new gym in Missoula is located in a strip mall, has some working equipment, and is populated by the same five guys who are always standing around not quite lifting anything. I mean, it’s not so bad. Part of the issue is that I’ve been having knee problems the last few months and I’m stuck on the stationary bike a lot, something that Ben describes as only being marginally better exercise than sitting on the couch. Worse, though, is that the stationary bikes at this gym have the following written on them:
“Stop exercising if you feel pain, faint, dizzy, or out of breath.”
Yeah. I know. A parallel structure nightmare. And I have to stare at it for 30 minutes a day. It’s like driving by a flaming seven-vehicle car crash that you can’t help but stare at, except that it’s with nouns and adjectives. It’s a word crash.
Now, I’m not a grammar expert by any stretch of the imagination, but this sentence follows me through the day like a terrible parallel structure ghost, shaking its chains and turning my blood cold with its crappy sentence balance. Whenever I’ve made a list in my head lately, it sounds something like:
“I need to mail those thank-you notes, buy some silverware, and pain.”
Or:
“Today I’m writing two press releases, some brochure copy, out of breath, and two web pages.”
I also often imagine a terrifying world in which people talked like that and it went totally unnoticed. For example, I might imagine a man sitting in a doctor’s office and explaining that his symptoms make him feel “faint and pain.” Or I think about two joggers finishing up a marathon, where one of them turns and says, “I’m dizzy,” and the other one says, “I’m pain.”
If you are thinking, “why don’t you just look somewhere other than the tiny 8-point font grammar mistake written on the bike, like maybe, for instance, at the TV directly in front of the bike? Or even the wall?” then I don’t think we’ll ever truly understand one another.
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