An Open Letter To The Fitness Class On The Third Floor Of A Building With No Elevator

Listen up, because I’ve got something to—well, okay, first, hang on, let me just catch my breath for a minute in the stairwell.

I mean, seriously? How dare you force me to confront the woeful state of my physical fitness a moment before the precise start time of this Tuesday night spin class? The class starts at 7:15 p.m. Therefore, I wish to begin feeling cardiovascularly inadequate at 7:15. Not at 6:58. Not at 7:09. At 7:15. I am not here to get fit on the way to getting fit. I signed up for 45 minutes of spinning. Not a stair-climbing sprint.

Look, this thing already happens where I walk into the class at 7:05 or 7:10 and people are cycling while we wait for the instructor to arrive. “Warming up,” this is allegedly called. Do you see what I’m saying here? There is already extra fitness tacked on to this illusion of the 45-minute class. Enough is enough. Oh, and don’t even talk to me about how the bathroom is in the basement. That means after class, I have to somehow coerce my aching, wobbly, gelatinous meat pillars down two flights of stairs so I can pee. And then back up those stairs. All told, we’re veering dangerously close to a full hour of exercise and I’m sorry, that is beyond what I am mentally, but mostly physically, prepared to take on. What’s next? You’re going to tell me fitness is a lifestyle, not a punishment?

I understand that every instructor who works at Positive Spin can instantly leap up three flights of stairs with the cool indifference of a teenage puma in heat. And I get that when you signed the lease and moved into the space, Chad, Chase, Chad and Katie, you took the stairs five at a time whilst dangling two spin bikes from each of your pinkies. That’s fine! Congratulations! Now please recognize that you work out 79 hours a day and are not normal in any way.

If you insist on putting Positive Spin three full flights of stairs above the earth on which I happily stand, one of you should at least come by my condo on Tuesday nights and carry me to class in your disgustingly toned arms. We should probably leave by 6:45.