Even before she opened her mouth he realized the dainty blonde
behind the reception desk was an airheaded bitch. He’d never met
anyone with such a condescending attitude as that bleached out,
space-case! A ditz, if there ever lived to be one! She actually
got pissed off because he didn’t jump up and down and clap his
hands when she offered him a one-year membership card. Of course,
it didn’t help matters that he was gay. Still, he wasn’t about to
let her ruin his first yoga class. He bought a five-class card and
asked her where he could change.
“Your sex?” she started to giggle.
Egon gave her his notorious stink-eye glare, showed her his back
and followed the crowd into the changing rooms. Which wasn’t easy
at that point. The previous class had just ended and twenty,
sweaty yogis of all shapes and sizes came pushing through the
narrow doorway in his direction. The twenty fresh yogis on his
side of the door pushed in.
When he finally wedged through the door, he realized why the
fresh yogis were so intent on being first into the room. Two
enormous pillars in the middle of the room took up half the
available space which hadn’t been ample to begin with. Finding a
good slot for his mat proved as difficult as finding a lost
contact lens in the dark room of a gay bar.
Two thirds of the incoming crowd were already dressed in their
yoga togs. The remaining third propelled him down the steps to the
changing rooms at the bottom of the steps at the back of the room.
He was jostled into the men’s changing area by the three guys
behind him. The four sweaty guys from the last class sat on a
small bench, not making room for any other of the newcomers.He
pressed himself up against the wall, squatted down behind a locker
door, wiggled out of his pants and into his tights trying to
maintain what little dignity he’d come in with. So much for making
a good first impression on the men he hoped to be dating before
the end of the month, he thought.
When he finally got upstairs, there wasn’t a free inch to roll
out his mat. He felt like the loser on the bleachers again,
certain everyone would stare and laugh at the boy with the
sky-blue yoga mat. But they just continued chatting, stretching,
or lying on their backs with their eyes closed. Not a single soul
looked in his direction. Which made him feel even worse than
before.
A skinny, young nerd in the back corner motioned him over,
telling the girl nearby to move her mat, making space. Skinny,
young nerds weren’t normally his brand of beer, but at that moment
he felt like he’d encountered his white knight.
Egon rolled out his mat and sat down. Background music spilled
from loudspeakers situated in the room’s four corners. A sitar
arpeggio quieted soon his jangled nerves. The teacher took her
place at the front of the class and quietly told her students to
close their eyes and come into their center.
He relaxed. All the negativity disappeared and for the next
sixty minutes he felt totally fulfilled. At the end of class, as
they sat on our mats in silence, a voice whispered from deep
within his heart, “This is it, Egon. You’ve finally arrived.
Welcome home!”