Snorting alone, apparently

I think I've mentioned in past posts that when our local YMCA was remodeled, the fitness room was fitted with three large-screen televisions.  The TVs are mounted in a row on a wall with stepping machines and treadmills facing them.  Usually, the TVs are set up with FOX News on the left, ESPN in the center and CNN on the right.  This is probably the only place where you will find FOX News to the left of CNN.  Each treadmill also has its own personal TV if you'd prefer to watch something else.  Yes, there are a lot of televisions at the Y.

I never use the TV mounted on the treadmill.  There are a few reasons for this but the main one is that I'm really not that interested in watching television while I run.  For me, one of the pleasures in running is locking my body into a rhythm, focusing on my gait and breathing and then just letting my mind wander where it will.  I fear this all sounds a bit more Zen-like and graceful than it appears in reality.  For one thing, it's pretty easy to focus on my breathing - it's that loud wheezy sound.  And my gait?  I would classify it as something slightly faster than plodding but not quite trotting.  Still, once I get things going a certain amount of momentum kicks in and I can generally free my mind to think of other things.

Of course, with three large TVs staring me in the face, it's hard not to watch them a little.  Okay, maybe a lot.  I don't so much watch them as look at them.  None of them has the sound on so you need to read the closed captioning to really follow what's going on.  I tend to flit from one set to the next, looking at images, occasionally reading a little of the transcript.  One morning, as I ran along, my gaze rested upon an interview with some political pundit.  The tag line across the bottom of the screen caught my attention because it sounded ridiculous.  I started following the captioning and I couldn't believe the absurdity of the comments.  It was almost laughable.  In fact, a woman running on a nearby treadmill chuckled out loud just at the point of one of the more inane statements.  A kindred spirit, I thought.  Someone who sees the world as I do.  I allowed myself a quick indignant snort, sort of a tsk really, just to let her know she wasn't alone.  Throughout the rest of the interview, I offered up a few more snorts and she laughed a few more times.  A shared moment between two people who weren't going to be snookered by some so-called expert just because they were on television.

The interview ended and so did my snorting.  But the woman on the treadmill was still chuckling.  I glanced over and realized that she wasn't watching the big TV on the wall.  She was watching the little TV on her treadmill.  A sit-com, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I believe - apparently, a very funny episode.