Get A Room, Lady!

So this afternoon I was kicking back at the Y, waiting for the girls to finish up practice. Third Grader was already done, actually, but we had an hour to kill until Fifth Grader was released so we could get Third Grader to her acting class across town. (We call this: Tuesday.)

Gymnastics practices offers parents a choice of seating. Choice one: a set of aluminum bleachers cozied up to a metal railing which separates spectator and gymnast. These are mostly occupied by the parents of very small gymnasts with very short practices - often with toddlers and their coloring paraphernalia in tow. The parents read magazines or knit scarves or chat amongst themselves. The toddlers color the bleachers and put their sticky hands all over everything. Including the occasional stranger's leg.

Choice two: a pair of high top tables set up on the other side of the gym - essentially in the hallway -behind a large picture window. This is where the veteran gymnast parents congregate. Nothing and no one is sticky there. I am happy to say that, with two competing gymnasts in the fam, I qualify for this option.

As I said, there are only two tables, and thus only four chairs. If I can't score a chair, like tonight, I perch on a small staircase located just a hair behind. This is where I was parked tonight when she showed up.

She arrived toward the end of the last practice, with about fifteen minutes to spare. Newbie. Probably just upgraded from Saturday mornings, or her daughter went to a different gym last year. Whatever. She wore lycra pants and perfectly coiffed hair fluffed out over a headband. She leaned over the back of a just vacated chair and searched out her kid through the picture window. Then, apparently, her aerobics class began.

First, she did donkey kicks. Two full sets while hanging over the back of the chair. Then some deep knee bends. A few torso twists. Third Grader sat next to me on the stairs, eating her tomato sandwich, mystified. "Mama, what's she doing?"

"Exercising, I guess."

"Here? In the hallway?" Jane Fonda now had her arms extended and was doing some twirly thing with her wrists. Ten circles forward, ten circles backward.

"Looks like it."

"Wow. That's weird."

Lesson for aerobics woman: When the little girl eating a tomato sandwich on a staircase in the hallway thinks what you're doing is weird? It's probably time to stop.

And don't hog the chair!