Tony you keep getting fatter and fatter” the patient’s words were kind of shocking because it just seemed so out of the blue and so random. “How much weight have you gained since you started working here?”

I really didn’t know how to answer the question so I kind of ignored it The words made me wonder if he was right though. Had I been getting fatter and fatter since working there. We do sit at a desk all day long and it’s rare that we get to do anything that’s even remotely related to exercise.

The closest thing to exercise that has happened at work was when one of my co-workers named Melissa started talking about Zumba. She raved about it and told us how much she enjoyed it. She had been doing it for a year now and had nothing but good things to say about it.

It was at that moment that I got the bright idea – I was going to do Zumba.

I had joined the gym but had not really been going so I looked up the classes and sure enough, they had Zumba classes after work, so two women that I work with and myself decided that we would try it for a month and see what happens. The thing that Melissa failed to mention is that you have to check your manhood at the door before entering the Zumba class.

The first night of the class I showed up with running pants and a sweat shirt. I walked into the class hoping that I wasn’t the only guy in it. I wasn’t the only one. There were two others. One was dressed pretty much the same way I was, the other was wearing shiny, purple spandex with green shorts over them. He also had a be-dazzled denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and a long sleeve yellow t-shirt. For some reason the thought, “we don’t run around in the same circles” crossed my mind.

The class started and the instructor just started dancing, never giving us direction or breaking down the steps for us newcomers. We were Zumba virgins sacrificed to the Salsa Gods. We were on our own  to try and figure out what to do… and we did - well, we did our best.

When we arrived at the class we ended up with the glass wall behind us, so the people who were doing cardio on the stationary bikes, treadmills, etc could see us. Sometimes some people would stand at the glass and look into the class to see what was going on. At one point a guy put his hands up to the window and watched the class. One of my co-workers pointed him out to me and said, “look, that guy is checking out your ass.”

I knew he wasn’t but after that comment I just couldn’t shake my ass anymore, so I did a little jig and shuffled my way over to the other side of the class where there was solid wall behind me and no one could see me attempting to shake my ass.

I ended up standing next to a big lady with a little head. I’m not being mean, I’m just sharing my experience and it wouldn’t be complete without letting you know that the lady had a tiny, little head, and a huge body, with boobs that fell to her waist and would move all around her body to their own beat as she danced around on the gym floor. Another thing is that she must have been doing other classes because she was covered in sweat and she smelled like tough, man armpits.

I didn’t care though, it was the gym and I was there to get thin so patients wouldn’t ask me how much weight I’d gained since working at my current job.

I started to move and dance like I’ve never danced before, then I had to lift my arms and take a whiff, I had to make sure it wasn’t me that smelled. Nope, it wasn’t me – I was right, it was the little head woman.  I get into the Zumba zone and start shaking my ass again, or at least I try to. I put my left foot forward, the rest of the class puts their right foot forward. I shake to the left, the rest of the class shakes to the right. I move one way the class moves the other. I turn while the class has already turned and has moved on to the next step. I move and accidently run into the little head lady.

“Excuse me.” I apologized.

She just grunted at me

Wow, these people take their Zumba seriously.

At this point I’d like to say that I’m a dude and a dude’s ass just doesn’t do the things that the instructor was doing. Well, I should take that back because the other guy in the class who was dressed much like I was could do a lot of the moves. It was strange because he was a big dude. He was at least 6’4 and had to weigh over 300 pounds and his ass was going ba-thonk, ba-thonk, ba-thonk, ba-thonk shaking to the music. It’s not that I was checking out his ass, but it was so big and right in front of me that I had no choice but to look at it. It was so big that it took up my entire field of vision. I’ll admit, his ass inspired me, when I saw that he was able to shake it and drop it like it was hot. I figured I could do it too, so I took the advice of the little life affirming messages and “danced like no one was looking.”

I figured that the best way to get through it and at least look like I was making an effort was to forget about my ass and just let it hang out and move where ever it wanted to. It was like my ass grew a mind of it’s own and moved this way and that, gyrating to the music. I felt a ba-thonk as my ass moved one way, then I felt another ba-thonk as it moved the other way. I was Zumbiaing, or at least I thought I was. I was happy, my ass was happy, and life was good, but all that happiness was short lived. As I was in the Zumba zone I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I was doing everything but Zumbiaing.