Tales From Zumba - The Cargo Shorts Guy

I've been to a couple of Zumba classes lately, and I must start sharing some stories because what happens during these 45-minute segments of cardio are a tad off-the-wall. If I could sneak in a camera Tales From Zumba could be a blog in itself.

photo credit - here

If you don't know what Zumba is, it's like Dancing with the Stars meets a Beyonce video.  There's lots of box-stepping, hip thrusts and even arm shimmies. It' a full on dance routine, and even a little sexy/grindy at times.

When I first started going I took great comfort in the fact that most of my classmates were just average people - no Fly Girls or Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader-types. This made me feel so much more comfortable in my own, cellulite-dotted skin.  Before taking a class in a studio with mirrors, I actually thought I still had my high school cheerleader mojo; I don't. But that's another story...

photo credit - here

I'm oddly private and self-conscious when exercising anyway, so I stand at the back of the class. After all, it's not 1994 anymore. At the front of the class, however, is this white man, probably mid-40's. He's not totally without rhythm, but sporting a t-shirt, tucked into his belted cargo shorts that hit past the knee and stark white tennies, socks pulled mid-shin...well, let's just say he's no Drew Lachey. Still, at my 'burb gym, anything goes, even cargo shorts which I think are the biggest crime of fashion ever (even though I know men, Dan included, love them and I'm told by fashion forward male friends that they are once again "in").

Love the man. Hate the shorts.

Shorts aside, this guy is out of place only because he's one of maybe 3 men in a class that's mostly all women.

So, he's dancing away and I'm thinking, Good for him. Until....he starts turning around, facing me, and the rows of women behind him. From ear-to-ear, he's grinning. He's also chomping on gum. In an instant, he goes from a case of Bless his heart for trying to just kind of pervy. If you want to watch everyone, go to the back row, right?

But it gets worse....he starts partnering up with a girl directly  behind him. He's close to her now...like at a Catholic school dance the nuns would be intervening. He's just short of being the J-Lo to her Marc Anthony, Idol Final 2011. Not kidding. Bless her heart.

I feel for this woman; I am SO distracted just watching from a good 15-feet away, but she's surely feeling his sweat. He does this the ENTIRE class, moving from one victim woman to another. He'll work out facing front for a while, like every normal exercise class attendee in the history of the world, but then boom, he turns around to face the class again....grinning, chomping, sweating.

I lose my ability to concentrate on the instructor because I'm mentally preparing what I would say if Cargo Shorts guy starts to Zumba up all the way to the back row. 

Now, I could be wrong - it's been years since I consistenly darkened the door of a gym - but this is not normal behavior, especially in the 'burbs, for communal cardio, true?