“Keep Away from the Gringa,” or,“The Gringa with the Cheese Touch”

If you’ve seen the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, then you’ll remember the scene with the “cheese touch.” On the playground in which much of the story takes place, there is a piece of cheese lying on the pavement. The cheese has been there so long, and is so disgustingly smelly, melted, and dirty that no one dares go near it. If a child so much as touches this piece of cheese, he or she has the "cheese touch” and can pass this malady to any other person he or she comes in contact with.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I admit that I didn’t believe this existed – until yesterday, that is.

I recently started going to what I would consider an affluent gym near my home. Yesterday, I ran to the gym from my apartment, which is almost exactly a mile away. In Idaho, I tend to sweat a normal amount, but in the DR I feel like I’m drenched after eight minutes. I was wearing a heather gray shirt that was a bit tighter fitting, so when I arrived, I was already showing sweat, my hair was a mess, my face was bright red, and I looked like a, well, bat out of hell, for lack of a better description. I paid my fee, entered the gym, and selected a treadmill at the back of the workout area. As I started my workout, all of the 30 treadmills became occupied. Well, not all. There was one open – and that one was next to me.

Over the next fifteen minutes, multiple people walked up to the available treadmill, looked at me, then left and waited for another treadmill to open up. Maybe it’s broken, or the potted plant is too close to it, or there is no air…all of these thoughts rolled around in my head. After this happened about four times – person walks up while looking at Blackberry, person looks at me, person pretends that they hadn’t intended to walk to that treadmill, person stands and waits for another one, away from where I am – I started wondering, is it me?

I can’t be sure of the cause, but someone finally started using the treadmill next me, after I’d been on the treadmill for 25 minutes…and it appeared to be working fine. So, now, I’m wondering – do I have the “cheese touch”? Or, would it be better called the “gringa touch”?