TIT FOR TAT -- Doing my part
I stagger through the glass doors from the gym to the lounge next to the entryway. Stagger is a little strong -- just sweaty and hot from playing three games of pickleball mid-morning. I've joined another fitness center adding it to the YMCA. If I'm going to improve my game, be ready for the Big Sky State Games tournament, I need more opportunities to learn from the "Big League" (intermediate and above).
The snack counter offers a new homemade protein drink. I'm thirsty. "I'll try that one," and point to the sign. As the clerk begins collecting the ingredients, an interaction to my left draws my eye. I observe a woman finishing her chat. I take her all in: Shoulder-length blond hair from a bottle, makeup heavy enough for a clown (to cover her 75+ years?), and broad at the slow-moving hips limping their way toward the workout hall. As she passes behind me, she mumbles something to the clerk.
"Excuse me?" he says, leaning over the counter to hear.
"Please change the channel to Fox News."
Makes sense. Fake hair, fake athlete, fake news channel.
This 75-year-old, short, white-haired, slimmed-down woman with eyebrow pencil, Carmex lips, and a small potbelly to starboard (me) turns to her and says, "Why? Fake news."
She continues on, mumbling something about CNN being fake news.
"O.K., good." The clerk has the TV remote and changes the channel. "Now we have two TV's together on the same channel."
The next morning, I'm sitting in the same lounge waiting for a friend. But before I sit down, I say to the clerk, "Please change the channel to MSNBC." She changes it but it's not MSNBC.
"Do you not have MSNBC?"
"No," she says. "Just NBC."
"Try CNN. Do you have that?" And CNN appears.
I return to my seat and observe the area. A bank of treadmills lines up behind the wood barrier that separates the lounge from the treadmills -- all face the two TV's. One shows a male-oriented sports chat; the other displays CNN News. The eyes of four or five pumping female treadmillers all seem focused on CNN.
Round one.
[Actually, kudos to the blond-haired woman who arrives at the fitness center hopefully to work out. More healthy than being a couch potato!]
