Cast of characters

I'm a people-watcher.

I have this tendency to create my own names, identities and backstories for people who I run across in everyday life, but whom I don't know from a can of paint. Lately, I keep seeing the same faces at the gym and I amuse myself during those cardio sessions when the closed-captioning on the tvs is pissing me off and I can't watch any more.

A few of the regulars:

Daddy: He is the first person I noticed and named at the gym. Older guy, probably in his 50s, tall with an athletic build. He obviously dyes his hair jet black; it's sort of naturally poufy and he seems pretty proud of it. I'm still trying to figure out Daddy's entire story. From what I can ascertain so far, he uses the gym as his personal employment pool for his bevy of 20 year old strippers (or escorts, haven't totally figured it out yet.) He looks intensely (not intently, intensely) at the youngest girls with the bounciest asses and boobs. He'll position himself on a cardio machine behind one and just bore through them with his eyes. He saunters around like it's a job fair for the world's oldest profession and he's the CEO.

PlasticGirl: A 20-something girl most often seen talking to Daddy, or with Daddy keeping an intent eye on her from across the gym, looking like if the wrong guy talks to her without seeing him first, there will be hell to pay. I am reasonably sure Daddy is not her... well... daddy. If he is, and he looks at her like that, well... *shudder* He watches over her like a possession, and truth be told, she looks like one. Sculpted to proportions that don't seem earthly or real unless you were raised in a Mattel factory, I think she is the face (and body) of Daddy's business - whatever that may be - and probably does a good bit of the recruiting. Rarely seen at the gym without Daddy.

The Poolboy: Dark, olive-skinned, brown-eyed, brooding boy who looks to be in his 20s. Long black hair, tied carefully back into a ponytail, with waves that set a cougar's heart all a-pitter-patter - but just makes me want to ask him what types of hair product he uses. I hate guys with nicer hair than me. And guys that are more sensitive than me. He looks like he would do a half-assed job cleaning your pool, then sit beside you on a deck chair, massage tanning oil onto the small of your back, read you poetry that brings a tear to his soulful eyes - then run off with your secretly gay husband.

Steven Segal With a Tic: Ok, this guy doesn't resemble SS except that he is very large (like 8 feet tall!) and muscular, you know, the kind of guy that still wears those crazy colored Hulk Hogan type baggy workout pants, and he wears his black hair in a pony tail. I didn't really feel the need to name him until I saw him doing cardio the other day, walking fast on a treadmill, every few seconds contorting his face into all sorts of interesting grimaces. I had seen him before in the weight area and had never seen the tic before, so either cardio gives him apoplectic fits of boredom (I feel ya, brother!) or he's really getting down to his playlist.

The BrokeBack Grunts:  A pair of thick-necked guys who work out together, each trying to out-manly-grunt each other while lifting free weights. They live in a fabulously decorated loft and after workouts they eat ice cream right out of the carton, watch Sex And The City, then spoon together.

Last, but not least...

Special Ops: Every gym has a Special Ops. He's in his 40s. He wears camo, every day. His hair is long and stringy, and in a pony tail. Presumably this is because he was dropped into the jungle and had to survive by eating grubs and drinking his own pee and breaking the necks of any guerilla soldiers whose job it is to his disrupt his mission - and he couldn't find a barber in the jungle. Oddly, he never breaks a sweat at the gym. Because sweat is for us civilian pussies.

I wonder what they call me.