Ever the intrepid explorer, I am a chicken who knows the ins and outs of world travel and adventure. I have ventured deep into the nebulous territories of the Starbucks inside of another Starbucks bathroom. All the way to the furthest reaches of the astral plane where the last McDonald’s offering 39 cent super size exists. Granted that “super size” comes with quite a lot of metaphysical and existential baggage, the point stands. I’ve seen some shit. Which is why my rage flows with both bridled and unbridled fluency at the disrespect many of these hotel chains try to pass off as a “gym.”
Generally speaking, hotels are one of the more commonly accepted liminally thresholded places in the world. If you’re there, regardless of the reason, you are in a state of transition. Your stay is a moment of stillness amidst a state of movement from one station to the next. Whether vacation or figuring shit out. So it would also make sense that if you are going to go work out, there be a gym ready, willing, and able to assist you to that end. Not slap you across the mouth and call it chapstick. Because the only thing chapped when I see that empty water bubbler with cobwebs and no cups, or treadmill that has an “out of order” sign written in papyrus, is my ass.
It’s hard enough forcing the willpower to work out in the first place, hotel beds are rarely comfortable. Quality of sleep is usually an experiment in how good you are at lying to yourself. After all, the sheets are usually moist, and you can’t ever be entirely sure it’s from cleaning. “Continental” breakfasts are used car salesmanesk fabrications loaded with too much sugar and 300% of your RDA of microplastics. Is it really that difficult to just put down a coherent weight set and some jump rope? A working TV? I’d even settle for a nice freshly chalked hop scotch grid.
Instead you mostly end up with a weight set in the end stages of cognitive dissonance or a full blown personality disorder. Weights that make no sense, half wrapped in mismatch colored neoprene, enough out of order signs plentiful enough to rival a laundromat. Layout looking like MC Esher designed the whole thing in the middle of a depressive episode that stretched into a full uncancelled Netflix series. Machines facing the wrong way working in fractions, and you’re hoping that whatever fraction it’s in the mood to carry is the one that lets you kind of sweat out last nights bar tab. Or in some kind of hellish contrast you open the door and find yourself in the middle of a famine of options, only finding a dirty thong, a broken Pogo stick, and trash can with no liner.
Why can’t we just put the barest minimum into these things? Try to keep some degree of fidelity to what was promised? You claim you got a hotel gym, so put one in there! Haven’t we already lent you enough in the ways of credibility? We all know your “Business” Center is a fraud. I see the thousand yard stares on your staff, and vending machines perpetually sold out of everything except 4am frustration. Is an actually functional gym really a bridge too far?
Whatever.
Next time I stay I’ll bring my own gear. Maybe I’ll even teach your staff advanced martial arts, so when the next time employee reviews come around, they’ll be ready. Mortal Kombat style. We’ll see how many “need improvement” then.
Fatality.
-RC