Today was one of those mornings where everything seems to go wrong.
I got up at 5:30 to try to get back to the gym before work. (Finally! I need it!) As I was getting ready, I was hit with a sudden attack of a severely upset stomach, and so by the time I managed to take care of that I was very late. Still, I wasn't down about it.
On my new, beauteous back road commute, I almost immediately found myself about 15th in line behind a very, very slow-moving dump truck. We're talking an average of 20 mph below the speed-limit here. The guy in the Subaru Imprezza behind him was riding his tail viciously, but for some reason, he wouldn't pass the truck. There were plenty of opportunities. And I know an Imprezza can outrun me, so I know it can pass a freaking dump truck. And the guy was obviously pissed off at going so slow, judging by his tailgating. So why wouldn't he pass the truck?? And, of course, being 15th in line, several people up front were going to need to pass before I was going to have any chance of making it myself. So, if they didn't pass, I couldn't pass. The truck didn't turn off the road until about two miles from my work. It was frustrating, but still, I didn't let it get to me.
Got to the office/gym late, but still with enough time to get in a workout. Got down to the gym, grabbed a locker, suited up, put everything else in the locker, clicked the lock closed... and realized that I no longer remembered the combination. I tried several combos that I thought might be it, but no dice. Ok, no problem - I've got the combo recorded on my computer upstairs in my office. ...But my office is locked, and the key is now locked in my gym locker. Damn. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying various combos I thought might be the one, but I couldn't find it. So, ok, that's pretty damn frustrating, and I feel like an idiot now, but still, nothing to get upset about really; just a minor glitch. Might as well get a workout in anyways. I'm all suited up for it, and I've got nothing else to do right now.
I haven't worked out in several months. In fact, I've gained back all of the weight I lost last Summer, plus a few pounds. And I haven't exactly been what you'd call "active" in the meantime. So, just fifteen minutes into my workout, I start to feel a tightening in my chest, and my left arm and shoulder start to hurt. Doesn't take a cardiologist to figure out what that means. So, ok, that's pretty scary, and a little daunting, but what's the sense in getting upset about it? I just stopped what I was doing and went into my cool-down a little early. No point in over-doing it. Gotta crawl before you can walk. Tomorrow, or someday soon, I'll be able to do twenty minutes, and then thirty, and that's how you get stronger.
So then my workout was over, and it was time to try and figure out what to do about my locker situation. By this point in the morning, our secretary is supposed to be in, and she has a skeleton key. So, I figured that I could just get her to let me into my office, get my combo, and then head back down to the gym to open up my locker and proceed with my post-workout clean-up. So I exit the gym and head up the stairs towards my office... until I get to the first locked door. My key card for opening our electronic security doors is on the same key ring as my office key, which previously mentioned is now locked in my gym locker. And I can't get back into the gym, because that door is electronically locked, as well. So, now I'm locked in a stairwell. Ok, so, clearly, this is not my day. But, it's early in the morning, someone is sure to be by soon. I'll just have to wait here for a little bit, that's all. I decided to take the opportunity to rest against a wall and have a morning meditation.
A note about my appearance: I honestly don't care what I look like while I work out. I don't bother to do my hair before my workout, because I'm just going to shower afterwards and have to do it again. So, I had wet, sweaty bedhead. And my workout clothes serve exactly one purpose: to keep me as cool and comfortable as possible while I'm working out. They are not meant to look attractive. My running shirt is thin and sleeveless, and you can clearly see my man-tits outlined against the... whatever the hell fabric that shirt is made of. And my shorts are, well, shorts; they do an excellent job of showing off my pasty-white, nearly hairless, and overly large legs.
Now, this is all fine, when I'm down in the gym and everyone else around me is also all sweaty and not-looking-their-best, but now I had to leave that specialized attire area, and venture out into the rest of the office. I felt a bit conspicuous, to say the least. After a few minutes, someone came along and let me in, and in short order I managed to get the skeleton key from our secretary, unlock my office, and retrieve the combo from my computer. (My earlier guesses hadn't even been close, by the way.) But now I had to get that knowledge back through all the electronically-locked security doors, and into the gym locker room.
I made my way down the back stairway and out into the parking garage, and around to the front door of the gym. I took this route specifically to avoid the more direct route, which would lead me straight through the crowded cafeteria where so many of my co-workers would be having breakfast right about now. But unbeknownst to me (because I always enter the gym through the back way), the main entrance into the gym lobby is also sealed with an electronic lock. And unlike the stairwell I was trapped in earlier, I can't expect someone to be coming by this way very soon. Almost everyone uses the back entrance, because it's attached to the office, the parking deck and the cafeteria; the front entrance is attached to the visitor parking lot. So, I'm going to need a new way in.
At this point, standing in my gym clothes on the front lawn, facing yet another locked door, the absurdity of the situation is beginning to sink in. I decide to see if the receptionist in the office building's main lobby (the one and only area of the our building that one can enter without a key card) would be able to let me into the gym. When she tells me she can't do that, I actually start to laugh. And not in a if-you-don't-laugh-you'll-cry kind of way, either. I was genuinely amused. I mean, how is this not funny at this point?
What the receptionist can do, she tells me, is to let me into the building so that I can go up through the cafeteria and down into the gym lobby that I was locked out of; then I should be able to knock on the door of the gym's workout area and get someone's attention to let me back in. She lets me into the building and I bypass the elevators and head up the stairwell, just like I normally do, thinking about the fact that I will now have to go through the cafeteria in my sweaty workout clothes, just as I'd been trying to avoid. Unfortunately, because I was thinking about that little unpleasantness, I failed to realize that I would, of course, need a key card in order to exit the stairwell and therefore enter the cafeteria. I did realize this as soon as I walked the three flights of stairs to the locked door, however.
So, I had to find my way out of the stairwell and into the parking garage, again, walk down the parking garage and out to the front of the building, again, and get the receptionist to let me into the lobby, again. I was actually enjoying myself by this point! As soon as I walked into the main lobby, the receptionist reminded me that I would need to take the elevators in order to reach the cafeteria without a key card, and I thanked her for delivering that information that would have been so useful five minutes earlier. But, after passing through the cafeteria, and enduring some disgusted stares, I finally made it back into the gym, and managed to open my locker. I almost danced the Dance of Joy on the spot.
But after my shower, as I was getting dressed, I realized something important. After that whole ridiculous comedy of errors that was my Monday morning, I felt great. I was happy. I wasn't frustrated or upset or irritated or anxious or any of the things I would've predicted I'd have felt after going through all of this. Throughout the entire ordeal, I naturally responded in a completely different way than I normally would have, without trying to. I had Brightsided my way through a rather hellish Monday morning and into a fabulous mood, without having to think about it once.
And here I thought this day couldn't get any better.
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