At most gyms you’ll see a sticker on every machine, asking you to sanitize the machine after you use it. This means you spray some sanitizing solution on a paper towel and use it to wipe all your sweat, mucus and other cooties from the machine. If you’re a germaphobic, you’ll probably want to sanitize it before use too since some people ignore their sanitizing duties. I decided to spice up the stickers on my gym machines using my cheap label gun (pictured left). You can find labeling guns like this at most Targets and Wal-Marts for $20 – $30.

My first label was just a small variation of the regular stickers, implying bodily harm if they didn’t sanitize their machines. It read SANITIZE THIS MACHINE OR ROY WILL HIT YOU. As far as I know there is no Roy working at this particular gym, but I’m sure my message convinced a few extra people to clean up after themselves that day. After two days that one disappeared, obviously by someone who doesn’t think the sanitizing rule applies to them, so I replaced it with a little tough love.

My next sticker addressed the time-honored tradition of staring intently at the girl’s ass in front of you for 45 minutes straight during your workout. To make girls feel more comfortable around the men in the gym, I created a label which urged members to PLEASE STOP STARING AT THAT GIRL’S ASS. As you can see below, I even managed to get a picture of a girl’s ass in the photo.

You know, I may not be the type to adopt highways or volunteer at the animal shelter or help old ladies across the street, but you can’t say I’m not dedicated to my own public service projects such as this one. I know that I’m a shoe-in for Heaven for sure at this point. For my next sticker I decided to bring Spessa in for some help and she suggested that I address the problem with erections at the gym so we came up with ERECTIONS ARE NOT ALLOWED DURING WORKOUT.

After a month of simply addressing the rules at the gym to help make it a better place, I decided that it was time to start helping out with the morale of the people there. My first label read IF YOU RUN FASTER THAN 8MPH YOU ARE A STUD, which lasted for over a week on a machine before being torn off by a member who just didn’t get what we were trying to accomplish. So I replaced it with Spessa’s latest idea of YOUR STINKY SWEAT IS SEXY. That one even made me feel good about my stinky sweat for my 30 minute run.

After a few weeks, I could tell that morale was seriously boosted in all of the members. What better time to remind them of the miracle of fitness with this label.

I’ve been placing these stickers (and others that aren’t really funny enough to bother posting) for several months now. Sometimes I can’t take pictures of them on the machine because the person next to me is keeping too close of an eye on every little move I make. Other times I can’t even discreetly slap the sticker on the machine because of the same reason. The longest lasting sticker so far was the 8MPH STUD, which lasted for an entire week. I’m sure members are taking them home to place in their kitchens and dens to help them feel good about themselves when they’re not at the gym.

I’m at the gym at least 5 days a week, so if you’ve got any good ideas on labels that I should be sticking on the machines, please post them in the comments area. I’m thinking my next project there should be to categorize the weights by placing labels over the numbers, just to give muscleheads that extra needed push.

It’d go something like this…

10 OMG YOU ARE SUCH A WIMP!
20 DON’T STRAIN YOURSELF TOO MUCH THERE, GIRLY!
30 CAN YOU SAY NANCY BOY??
40 SERIOUSLY MAN, PUT A LITTLE MORE EFFORT INTO THIS
50 OKAY NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE
60 OKAY PAL, TIME TO LAY OFF THE STEROIDS!
70 HOLY CRAP, YOU COULD TOTALLY BEAT UP THAT GUY OVER THERE

And so on. Maybe you can come up with some better labels too.