Diff'rent strokes

I know there are different types of people in the world...my husband and I epitomize some of the more common ones. People who hit the snooze button/people who think the snooze button is evil. Short people/tall people. Morning people/not-morning people. Indiscriminate TV watchers/discriminating TV watchers. Cleaners/those who do not (although, to be honest, we are both cleaners, thank goodness...my brother and his family, on the other hand, well, let's just say the dust bunnies love them).

Living here, I've noticed that people also tend to be either very considerate of other's space/time/preferences (to the point where it becomes amusing) or they succumb to what my husband and I call (from our time in the DC burbs) "IASMMITAYLP syndrome" (translated: I am so much more important than all you little people syndrome). There, we encountered it most often on the roads...people who think that they, of course, should be allowed to break the rules of the road because their time/car/person is more important than anyone else's. Here, oddly, I've only really encountered it at the gym. Strange. Everywhere else, people are courteous to the point of amusement - if you aren't looking up and the light changes, no one honks. I can't tell you how weird that is after our time out East.

But in the gym? Dude, it's anything goes. This morning, Crazy Elliptical Girl (oh, come on, your gym has one too - the woman who hangs on the elliptical bars, legs flying at some ridiculously high rate of speed, for an hour at a time? yeah, that's c.e.g.) came up to do her 45 minutes on the bike (post c.e.g. episode). As she walked into the (full) cardio room, she turned down four of the five fans in the room. Not just the one kind of behind her favorite bike - but 4 of the 5 that string out across the treadmills. Were they going to blow her hair too hard? Did she not want to get a chill? But why did she have to do 4 of the 5? Why not just the one near her? (These are the unanswerable questions that I tend to ponder, and which tend to drive DH crazy...hence the blog...)

There was also headline news man - who came in when there were only 4 or 5 of us up there, marched up to the TV that I and at least one other person were watching, and proceeded to a) flip the channel and b) turn it up REALLY LOUD. Not a glance, or a raised eyebrow to see if anyone cared. Nope. He wanted headline news, not CNN, and by golly, he was going to get it!

I admit, the general courtesy shown by most people in this lovely town makes for a really nice existence. I know that if my whole house was down with the flu or something godawful, that the neighbors would be willing to leave clorox and gatorade on the front porch. I can't tell you how much I enjoy that - particularly given the neighborhood we lived in for our last 15 months in MD. But I think the thing that grates on me about these people at the gym is the contrast they provide to this area in general. It's like common courtesy goes out the window, because we're all sweating together? Because your comfort during your work out is more important than that of 20 other exercisers? It's just odd.