Fun at the Gym...

What do you do when the city's completely hot Democratic Mayor/Gubernatorial candidate is on the Elliptical Machine (hereby the EM) next to you with arms pumping and sweat flying and legs doing those things that legs do when they run and....

Right, I'm quitting now. So, what do you do when you have the opportunity to ask him about his take on the BGE crisis and the fact that the state gas prices, on average, are the 10th highest in the nation?

Here's a hint...you do NOT treat the man to five televisions of Trent Lott.

Of course, that's exactly what I did on Tuesday. See, General Hospital is getting really good these days, and I figured that I could do some serious multitasking by working out while watching. Unfortunately, the TVs in front of the EMs seem to be permanently set on NBC, CBS, and the news channels. Since I'm usually the only person doing cardio when I'm in there, I should be able to watch what I want to watch, right? Therefore ,the toothless wonder (yes, I'm serious) on Dr. Phil was going to go, and I was going to get my daily dose of Scorpio (Robin...though Robert is back too) and Dr. Drake (Patrick...though Noah/Jessie's Girl) is back too.

That was the plan. The execution, however, went something like this:

I approached the desk and the receptionist (who was swamped) told me that I could take "the remote from the desk in the other room" and change whatever TV I wanted. As long as it wasn't like porn, they were cool.

Problem #1: There were three unmarked remotes in the drawer.

I grabbed all three and headed for the TVs. That's when I saw Mayor O'Hottie on the EM. I asked if he was watching anything in particular. He said no. I declared my undying love (ok, maybe not). I then pointed Remote #1 at my TV of choice and fired.

Nothing happened. The same thing happened with Remote #2. I thought I saw some flickering from the TVs at the front of the room, but I couldn't be sure. Plus, I really didn't care because those weren't the objective.

I grabbed the third remote, pointed it again, and FIRED. Suddenly all five televisions (including the "nothing in particular" one that the Mayor was watching) switched...to C-Span and Trent Lott's rant of the day.

Problem #2: The remotes then FAILED.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't get rid of Trent Lott. The mayor was getting pissed, and I could completely understand. I mean, you're in politics; the last thing you want to deal with when you're trying to relax at the gym is the leadership of your opposing party spewing hatred for all things that your party stands for. I think the only thing worse would have been a press conference with Bob Ehrlich.

I ran down to the desk in a panic. "Um," I whispered, "the Mayor is being inundated with Republican rhetoric, and it's all my fault. Think you can bail me out here, please!?!"

The trainer, who was nowhere in sight when I was flipping channels, finally materalized. After laughing his ass off, he agreed to lend a hand. He changed the batteries, set me up with GH, the toothless guy, and Guiding Light (I like variety, but I really wasn't interested in what was on TV anymore), and returned the other two TVs to happy news channels (in other words, not FoxNews). They mayor kept working out and both he and I were very, very happy.