Once Again, Far Afield From Mankind

Remember that Schoolhouse Rock cartoon entitled "Interjections?" You know, where they sang a catchy song about the exclamation point and words "yay" or "eek" or "rats" to describe emotions? And that one scene where a stadium full of people go "awww" and then one lone guy stands up and says, "Hurray! I'm for the other team!"

I've managed to spend a great deal of my life feeling like I think that guy felt: Pretty okay with who he is and what he's about but in a distinct minority when looking at the same thing everybody else is looking at. It's the same event, we just have different perceptions.

Case in point:

Last night. Cycling class.

The class is full of the demographic that advertisers covet. The type of folks that make it a priority to attend a health club cycling class at 6PM. Our middle-age spread shows. Our hairlines recede. Soccer moms chat about PTA meetings and the unfairness of select sports team selections. Advertisers know we'll want stuff to keep us from being those kinds of folks.

But we are those kinds of folks and we're generally okay with that.

So, our class instructor is one of us. The difference is her life is designed to be kind of like a drill sargeant and kind of like that cool teacher we all liked and kind of happy. While she's warming up and getting her microphone all situated she tells us how many meters she swam in the hour before she came to class. She encourages us while telling us to increase our tension and push through the threshold and feel the burn. All sorts of stuff like that...all while not really sweating like we are and chatting while we breathe hard. Mostly, the burn we feel is in our lungs, too.

Anyway, part of her encouragement during the hour session involved telling us to pedal to the music she brings to the class. It goes like this:

"Alright, class. Let's increase that tension just a touch, okay? WHO'S UP FOR SOME DURAN DURAN?!" She knows what music our demographic likes, apparently.

[all 24 others in the class "whoo hoo" in response and pedal faster to the hit "Wild Boys"]

"That's great, class! Good, steady climb there. Let's plateau a little bit and decrease the tension. Let's get some water, towel off a bit and slow the pace a bit before the big climb. WHO'S UP FOR SOME FOREIGNER?!" Once again, she shows a keen sense of what our demographic likes.

[all 24 others in the class "whoo hoo" again as "Hot Blooded" plays. They seem pretty excited to be plateauing, getting water, and toweling off as well as preparing for the big climb. I, on the other hand, counted off that they say the words "Hot Blooded" exactly 40 times in the exactly 4 minutes, 28 seconds of the song. I, on the other hand, am counting & timing to occupy my mind until I can get off the bike.]

"Now, class, since we've got one more big climb to go we're going to need a little more energy to finish strong, okay? We'll need something a little harder and faster to get us going, so WHO'S UP FOR SOME HOOBASTANK?!"

[I'm pretty excited because I'm up for some Hoobastank, so I give as much of a "Whoo hoo" and my lungs will allow. Their song "Out of Control" is just what I need to get me through the 2 minutes, 44 seconds of the big climb.]

Officially, no one else was up for some Hoobastank. They aren't in our demographic as their blank stares from lack of Hoobastank recognition all focused on me and my "Hooray, I'm for the other team" excitement about all this.

All I could say was, "I'm still up for some Hoobastank!" I "whoo hooed" again for good measure.

Everybody laughed and we finished the big climb.

I think I need a new demographic, though. I think I was in a different place musically than even my fellow man.