I was in spin class, the room cave dark, the music night club loud. Class was crowded for a Wednesday, almost every spin bike taken except for the broken one turned backwards and the lone bike under the stereo. Class had begun, and we were all warming up and getting ready to sweat. CC, our instructor, regaled us in a funny story or two to loosen us up and let us all know that spin was work, but it was also fun.
And then he walked in, a good ten minutes after class began, and everyone turned and looked at him. Not because he was drop dead gorgeous. Not because he was so muscular and fit that we couldn’t look away.
Honestly, we had no idea what he looked like, because none of us could look past his get-up.
He was a Clemson University fan, perhaps its biggest. He wore a bright orange Clemson ball cap, a white shirt with an orange paw print over the left breast, and orange shorts with Clemson scrolled on one leg. His outfit would have been fine for a football game. For a Wednesday morning spin class, it was overkill.
But that’s not the worst part.
He wore sunglasses, in the cave dark spin room. Sunglasses which he kept on for the entire class. I always wear contacts to class because just the idea of my regular glasses slipping on my sweat-drenched face could make my face chafe. Not to mention I could fog up my glasses walking up the stairs. I doubt I would be able to see through them after fifteen minutes on the spin bike. Did he have something to hide?
But that was also not the worst part.
On his legs were tall black socks, pulled up almost to the knee. In case you haven’t noticed, the boys these days are quite fond of wearing black socks, mid-calf, with any kind of shoe. It makes them all look like elderly tourists, but whatever, who understands kids and their bizarre fashion sense anyway. This was no boy; this was a middle aged man, and these weren’t mid calf length socks, they were practically up to his thighs. If I had to put money on it, I would bet they were compression stockings, like those worn by diabetics or people with poor circulation who are prone to getting blood clots in their legs.
But that too was not the worst part.
On his feet were navy blue Crocs. That was the worst part.
I will admit, I am pretty anti Croc. If you are working in the garden, then fine, slip your feet in those duck-like plastic shoes and have at it. If you are an obese red haired man famous for your Italian cooking and you want your signature look to be bright orange plastic shoes, whatever, to each his own. But if you are at the gym, exercising, you might want to at least sport, sport being the key word, some appropriate footwear. Crocs make everyone look like an asshole. Crocs in a spin class, however, are enough to make twenty people question your sanity, your fitness level, and your ability to live independently. If you can afford a gym membership, you can afford some sneakers.
I went to a children’s museum recently, and they had a display of all the children’s Crocs that were eaten by the escalators. My ten year old is now scared to wear hers, and she only wore them to dance class for the easy on/easy off factor before she slips into her Pointe shoes. Grown men at the gym should know better, or at least have some dignity and self respect.
The Croc shod Clemson fan came in ten minutes late and clambered onto the one remaining bike, shoved his Crocs into the shoe cages, and began pedaling. He didn’t bother adjusting the seat or the handlebars. He didn’t have a refreshing bottle of water or an old towel with which to absorb his sweat. And he didn’t take off his sunglasses. He just rode.
At one point in the class, our instructor made a comment about the first football game this weekend. The Croc shod Clemson fan shouted an enthusiastic yahoo, in case we had forgotten he was a Clemson fan, which we had not. A couple of other people might have hooted, but it was drowned out by his yell, which might be an indication of how obnoxious he would be to sit next to at the stadium.
I have seen my share of odd in spin class. There’s the frighteningly thin elderly woman who insists on wearing pearls and hot pink lipstick. There’s the older woman who wears her white sports bras as her top, even though every other woman at the gym wears a shirt. There’s the woman who insists on full make-up and cologne for a morning workout. Sunglasses and Crocs blew them all away.
As we all exited the room after class had ended, I commented to my spin buddies, “Well, that was different.” “What the hell?” asked one of my friends. CC, the instructor, asked, “Were those…Crocs?” And we all laughed, kind of like one of those laughs at the end of a sitcom when image freezes and the credits roll.
If you don’t want twenty people to laugh at you, don’t wear Crocs to the gym. It might even be in the fitness club rules, and if it isn’t, it needs to be. It will be one of those rules that people will read in about five years and say, “Why is that even a rule? Oh, because some weirdo probably wore Crocs to exercise. But who would do something that stupid?”
At least twenty of us know the answer to that one.
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