Along Came a Spider

Counting down the minutes during a workout is often the only way to pass the time. For the lazy non-fitness person, workouts are measured in minutes, not pounds lifted or miles run. Run five miles? That would take like an hour, once I see that thirty minute timer expire, I’m out. In a hotel gym, the minutes seem to pass even slower. It’s as if they have installed some sort of time distortion field that makes each minute feel like two. Hotel gyms are a mixed bag. You can get anything from a retrofitted guest room with some random second-hand treadmills to a full on strength and cardiovascular training paradise.  This week’s hotel gym was the latter, including a pool, separated from the gym by a glass wall. All manner of cardio torture devices facing the pool to give you a clear view of (or lack of) the swimmers.

As I strode gazelle-like on my elliptical machine peering into the unused swimming pool, I noticed something scampering out from under a deck chair. This something happened to be a spider. No ordinary spider. This was a creature of National Geographic proportions. Something Man vs. Wild might cook on a stick in the Sahara before building a bed out of dried palm leaves and settling down for a good night’s sleep. Twenty minutes to go (in the workout that is).

The spider now scurried cautiously to the edge of the pool and with what I imagined must have been a small splash, jumped in. Over the next ten minutes, it proceeded to swim around the pool, I assumed in a panic attempting to find the exit. Ten minutes to go.

Suddenly all movement stopped. The chlorine must have finally gotten to him. I’d be lying if I said I felt bad. No one mourns the death of a spider. Well, unless you’re one of those spider scientists, then you might. But since I don’t know any spider scientists, I’ll stick with no one. It was a goner. “Dead, dead, dead. My honest observation” yelled the music in my ear. A fitting epiphany. Five minutes to go.

The last five minutes of a workout are always the longest. Sweet freedom is so close you can smell it but the clock, oh the clock. Taking its sweet time, tick, tick, tick. Two minutes to go. One more check of my arachnid curiosity. Was that? Did it? Yes, movement, swimming, all eight (spider have eight legs, right? I’m too lazy to Google it) legs working in unison propelling it directly to the side.  Then, as if with no effort at all, it simply climbed out of the water and stood on the pool deck as if daring someone to enter and swim. Thirty seconds to go, then twenty, then ten, and freedom!

Exiting the gym peering though the glass, I thought to get a close-up snapshot. It was the image of myself caught in a giant web feebly moaning “Help meeeee…” that kept me moving. The pool is all yours my friend, enjoy it.