iFail

On Friday evening, I went to the gym (yes, I know, loser alert, but Bart didn’t get back until quite late that night and I had nothing better to do. Also, it was the only way I was going to get in my 4 workouts for the week. Also, enough justifying my Friday night at the gym. It’s not like you don’t already know I’m not exactly radiating coolness).

I was reading a book on the treadmill while I walked, but when I was ready to start running, I turned on my iPod so I could finish up the audiobook I was listening to.

I only ran for a few minutes before I knocked the headphone cord with my arm, dislodging the iPod from the little tray on the machine and sending it flying past me, where it promptly disconnected from the headphones and landed on the floor. Then I had to do that embarrassing retrieval of it while all the people in the row you’re in AND the row behind you stare at you as if to say, “you really can’t even manage to keep your iPod off the floor?” (but hey, they were all there on a Friday night too, so I couldn’t feel too embarrassed).

I got back on the treadmill, restarted the iPod, and continued on my merry way.

For about 47 seconds. And then I knocked the cord again and repeated the whole scenario.

Except this time, I couldn’t see the iPod. Granted, I didn’t have my contacts in and I’d taken my glasses off because obviously I don’t wear those while I run, but still. Black carpet. Silver iPod. It shouldn’t have been that difficult.

I just could not see it ANYWHERE. The nice guy next to me took pity on me and laid down on the floor to look under the treadmills. He couldn’t see it. The guy on the treadmill behind me asked what we were looking for and he started looking around too.

I searched around all the treadmills, squinting like crazy, to no avail. It was like it had disappeared. And it’s not like you can really just hop back on the treadmill and be all, “Meh, it’s an iPod. So what if I lose it? I lose equipment worth over $100 every few days and think nothing of it. As you were.” I felt pressure not to give up the search.

(Really, the iPod is so old and the top is cracking off, and it’s completely scratched from the millions of times I held it against the bars of my bike when I rode back and forth to work that one summer that we will not speak of, and I have a new one that I’d just gotten 10 days earlier, so if it couldn’t be found, I wouldn’t be devastated).

On my way out, I told the guy at the desk what had happened and pointed out the treadmill I’d been using, asking that if it was found, it just be put at the desk for me and I’d check back in the morning (also, this is an excellent way to emphasize to the gym people that you have no life. Not only are you there on Friday night, but you’re telling them you’ll be back bright and early the next morning).

The next morning, when I arrived, I asked the guy manning the front desk if it’d been turned in. He said no, then asked me to show him the treadmill I’d been using. He looked under all the treadmills in the bank and all around and I finally said it was no big deal and went to another treadmill to start running.

And then, a guy on the treadmill near the one I’d been using the day before called out to me, “they found it!” Apparently the front desk guy had gotten a screwdriver, opened up the sides of the treadmill and found the iPod lodged in next to the track. Who even knew that could happen?

I think the moral of the story is, don’t go to the gym on Friday. It will bring you nothing but humiliation and heartache.