I’m trying to figure out a way to write this story without appearing like an elitist prick.

Then again, I have an MBA and am married to a doctor, so perhaps that engenders some elitist feelings. At least I don’t send my kids to private school, drive an H2, or belong to a country club.

At any rate, I’m going to use this story to judge some people, which I’ll admit is a dick thing to do. Maybe if I tell you that I’ve spent many an hour volunteering to assist the physically challenged in fitness programs and donated about half my weight in blood you’ll let it slide.

Without further ado, let the assholery commence.

I took my car into the shop a few days ago. They said it was going to take a couple of hours so I wore running gear and went for a tour along the river pathway. When I returned I went to the service centre and was told the following:

“It wasn’t what we thought. The jiggerthingy is frammalizing with the whozamabobber. Bend over. We need to unregogulate the shamanaframmer from the shibitydoo. Now unclench. It’s going to take another three hours.

Fine. I can find another way to kill time while you figure out new and interesting ways to violate my children’s college fund.

I had come prepared with some clean clothes and deodorant, so I neatened myself up in their bathroom and walked about a mile to a gym up the street.

Before I tell you about this gym, I want to tell you a story about another gym, just for the hell of it.

In my earlier work as a technology marketroid type person I traveled much of North America. Many cities I liked. Some I didn’t. I’ve been to Atlanta, GA four times, and it’s one of my favorites for one simple reason: it’s a friendly place

That thing about Southern hospitality? It’s true.

I was staying in some mediocre Holiday Inn near the convention centre whose idea of a gym was two exercise bikes and a treadmill. I asked the concierge if she knew of any gyms I could go workout at that actually had heavy things for lifting up and putting back down again.

“Well, you can take the MARTA to Lee Haney’s gym,” she suggested.

Although I’m no fan of bodybuilding, I’d heard of eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney before, and figured a place owned by him would probably have the odd piece of iron scattered about. She gave me directions and I was on my way.

I found Haney’s without difficulty and upon entering the establishment it was like that scene from Animal House where the frat boys walk into the bar where Otis Day and the Knights are playing. Everyone in the place pretty much stopped what they were doing and looked at me with varying degrees of astonishment.

I paused for just a moment, realizing I was the only white guy in the place. Then I felt like a heel for having paused, and walked up to the front desk.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the attendant said. “Welcome to Lee Haney’s Gym. Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah. I’d like to do a drop in just for the day please.”

“Certainly, sir. That’ll be ten dollars.”

I paid him and he provided me with a lock and towel and walked me over to the change room. “If you need anything at all, sir, please just come ask.”

Like I said: Southern hospitality.

So I started working out, and noticed that I was the smallest guy in the place. Actually, I may have been the smallest person there, because there were some seriously muscular chicks at Haney’s.

People made conversation, heard my accent, asked where I was from, and that sort of thing. Everyone was nice and I had a good workout too. Next time I’m in Atlanta I’ll go back, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Fast forward to killing time working out whilst getting ass-raped by my mechanic.

The gym was a nice place; clean, good equipment, well lit, big windows etc. There was really nothing to complain about, at first.

The first thing I noticed was there was a lot of tattoos. I’m not talking about tramp stamps and panthers on shoulders; this was full-on body armor. Half the guys in the place look like they were out on parole, wearing revealing tank tops and sporting multiple piercings and full sleeves of tattoos picturing scenes of various depravity.

One guy in particular had a skull and cross bones under his ear and some other tattoos on the side of his shaved head. Actually, there seemed to be a lot of shaved heads.

Then it struck me: there wasn’t a single non-white person there.

A lot of these guys looked like extras in the movie American History X. Come to think of it, it was like being in the white supremacist section of a prison-yard gym. To put it mildly, this creeped the everloving fuck out of me.

Now was the gym some kind of neo-Nazi stronghold? I seriously doubt it. Maybe I was just there at the wrong time, although it did strike me as weird that there weren’t any people there who weren’t white. My regular gym is a multi-cultural type of place, but that’s on a university campus.

This gym was in a bit of an industrial area and maybe these were just the types of people that lived around there. I don’t go to that area of town often so I just don’t know.

At any rate, I guess I’m an elitist prick, because I won’t be going back to that gym.

And the guy with the tattoos on the side of his head? Turns out he works there.