An open letter to guys who don't wipe down their treadmills

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October 27, 2017 1:54 PM

Failing to wipe down your equipment is a serious gym offense.

To The Guy Who Just Got Off The Treadmill,

My jaw is slack with disbelief as I watch your sweaty back saunter around the corner. I know where you're off to next: to commit another vile act, likely in the locker room to drop your sweaty shorts on top of an unsuspecting victim's water bottle while you head into the shower, flip-flop-less. You'll then head to the grocery store, grab the cheese samples with your bare hands, and, of course, buy no cheese, and then stroll up to the express lane with all 24 of your items.

How is it that I already know so much about you in the nine seconds since you rounded that corner? These are actually all the key characteristics of a man with zero sense of human decency, which, based on the way the treadmill I'm currently standing on is dripping all sorts of your bodily fluids, is the very definition of you.

Let me be clear—I don't have a problem with the amount of sweat covering the equipment. As a top-tier sweater myself, I understand that it's impossible to spend more than five minutes at any given spot in the gym without accumulating a puddle of salty body fluid on everything in a 18-inch radius. I get it, I really do. The problem is that you just spent the last 30 minutes literally pouring yourself out on that treadmill, then proceeded to not so much as glance at the wipes located five feet away.

Are there worse things a man can do? Eh, I guess. But let me paint you a quick picture: Imagine in the middle of your workout, I hand you my shorts and t-shirt I've been wearing while rowing in a sauna for the past hour. I say to you, 'Hello, you have to change into these to finish your workout, or else you can leave,' and hand over a dripping, salty ball of my linens. That is essentially what I am feeling as I attempt to work out on equipment over which you just unleashed your perspiration.

I just gagged a little because I touched the left handle of this treadmill and was met by sticky dampness that I realized was not residual disinfectant wipe. I cleaned up your mess as best I could, but obviously missed a spot.

You need to know that you've committed one of the worst gym offenses of all time, and I sort of hate you.

Sincerely,

You Ruined My Workout And My Life

Wipe down your exercise machines, a**holes.

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