An Accidental Meeting with Ant-Man

I push it so hard in the gym that I rarely acknowledge regular schmucks, much less someone uber famous staring at me. Call it blind focus or sightless drive or maybe my iron blinders are just soaked in sweat? Some may not understand that kind of focus, but those who are serious gym junkies always will.

Over the years, there have been a few infamous, several famous and many quasi-famous people walk through the doors of my gym. I’d say Mandrill’s is on top of the short list of top gyms to visit in New Mexico. Most of these visitors have been easy to spot out, looking much like their movie version selves. The quasi famous are easy to spot out. They feed on recognition and usually have a parade of people following them and many, many flashes.

On Friday, there were two new, quiet faces lurking around Mandrills Gym. At the time, that’s all they were to me… two new faces. I was off from work and hitting legs hard! I was also being my usual unapproachable self. The two new guys seemed to be circuit training. One, the obvious trainer and the other, the heavily bearded trainee. I know that for at least 45 minutes, these two saw me with a I’m in an ass kicking mood look on my face.

And so goes the story of my accidental meeting with Ant-Man. I was hack squatting and he was benching when our eyes actually met for the first time. The placement of these two pieces of gym equipment made it hard for me not to notice two bulging eyes staring at me from the bench. It was his turn to burn a set and I started thinking… “this guy looks familiar as fuck. Did I go to school with him or what? What’s he looking at?”

I realized I recognized him because he was a movie star somewhere after I saw him buried under 225 on his first attempt. Poor guy. I was resting between sets and felt so sorry for him that I actually took my headphones off and told them that they had the heavy bar. His trainer seemed a little unhappy about my input and confused about the bar, but I made the lifter feel better. He told me… “this isn’t a 45 lb bar? I actually did better than I thought then!” I told him… “no and you did. You could have hit that for one.”

•• My son Daryn, Paul Rudd and Daryn’s best friend Richard ••

I realized it was Paul Rudd that very moment. Maybe it was his voice, because it surely wasn’t his burly beard. For the first time, I felt famous, maybe even infamous in the presence of someone who was actually famous. Rudd has been in at least 50 movies. He was shredded as shit in some of them too. I felt like he was impressed with my workout. I’m far from the hottest gal he has seen, but he wasn’t staring at my butt. He was staring at my drive.

He is here filming a movie. Ant-Man did have his LA based personal trainer, Brendan Johnston with him, but that day, I showed them how New Mexicans do it. Even though I felt bad about my scowling looks, I broke down and asked if he’d take a photo with my son. How could I not ask? My son would kill me if he knew Ant-Man was there and I didn’t tell him. When I asked, they both seemed like they weren’t really into it even though Rudd said yes. Do you blame them? I seemed like a total bitch. Here is a text from my funny ass nephew if you don’t believe me

I walked out of the gym thinking “I blew that one.” My son and his friend were waiting for me outside. I told them about Ant-Man, but had decided I wouldn’t take them in. I told them that he was training in there, but wasn’t really wanting to take a photo with them. They were disappointed, because we like Ant-Man. To my surprise, Rudd’s personal trainer actually ran out of the gym to get me. I was shocked! He asked if we could come inside with him. We were psyched!

I will credit that turn around not to my scowling face, but to the respect I earned that day during my workout and my accidental meeting with Ant-Man!

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