The Man With the Bag

Gyms, especially in the early mornings, have a pretty regular crowd.  When you're getting there pre 7:00 am the odds are good that everyone will look pretty damn familiar.  At my gym, for example, there are a handful of lifters, a couple cardio bunnies and a group of silverhairs who hit the machine weights and treadmills.  While I don't KNOW everyone, I still know everyone.

Keeping this in mind, when someone out of the ordinary is around it's fairly noticeable.  While we all have our regular schedules, there are just some days that things change and you have to move your workout.  This is normal.  This is expected.  Shit happens, but you still have to get it done.

Today, amidst the retirees and the girl who goes 18,008,724 miles per hour on the elliptical, there was some on out the ordinary.  While I normally only casually notice this and more on, this gentleman caught my attention.  It wasn't so much what he was doing or how he was doing it, it was the bag I noticed.  Yes, the bag.

It's a mystery.

Moving from machine to machine, the youngish man in question toted a bag with him.  And I'm not just talking a small, duffle or a fanny pack.  I'm taking a huge, oversize black duffle bag that looked heavy as shit.  Lift to lift the thing was never more than a foot away from him.

Now this is a gym, so obviously bags are a normal thing.  Also a normal thing is placing those bags in one of the many, courteously provided shelves, cubbies, lockers or shit even a random corner.  Bringing the bag, setting down the bag in a convenient location, working out and then retrieving the bag are all normal things.  Lugging the bag around is not a normal thing.

So naturally, I found myself question what the bag contained.  There are only two options: a body or money.  Or at least those seemed like fabulously glamourous options aided by the fact that they guy had perfectly jelled, black hair that matched his nicely tucked in black t-shirt.  Both coordinated most expertly with his classic gold watch.  What can I say, the general Jersey mob vibe totally had everything to do with my fantasy of what the bag toted.  Stereotypes abound!

But all jokes aside, what the hell was in that damn thing that he couldn't make it easy on himself and leave the bag in one spot?  What could he not keep separated from him in a gym that is small and open enough for you to see everything all at once?  WHAT WAS IN THE DAMN BAG?!

Welcome to my thought process during morning cardio...