The MAGA-thon: Spite, Saturated Fats, and the Spin Cycle of Doom

The air in the "Spin Cycle" studio at the local gym was thick with the scent of organic citrus floor cleaner and the collective, desperate sweat of a dozen people trying to outrun their own bad decisions and mortality. But for Brenda, it smelled like treason. It smelled like a deep-state, gluten-free, avocado-toast-eating, woke communist conspiracy, that was personally trying to steal her breath and destroy her life.

Brenda was a monument to American ego and exceptionalism. She sat atop her stationary bike like a conqueror claiming a hill, though the hill was currently vibrating violently under her weight. She was encased in a navy-blue velour warmup suit that was performing a structural miracle by not detonating under the sheer pressure of the weight of her "pure-blooded" self-righteous indignation. On her head, the crown: a pristine, red MAGA dunce cap, tilted forward like the prow of a girthy battleship.

To her left sat Maya.

Maya was a vision of effortless, infuriating grace. She was a bronze-skinned predator in leopard-print spandex, her tattoos winding around her limbs highlighting and accentuating her natural feminine curves and muscle tone. She wasn't even breathing hard. She was just... existing. Pedaling with a rhythm that suggested she found the entire concept of physical exertion to be a delightful suggestion rather than a brutal punishment, which is what Brenda's facial expressions were screaming on the matter. Maya had sunglasses perched on her head, looking like she’d just wandered in from a yacht and decided to accidentally be the fittest person in the zip code... and effortlessly beautiful in her existence.

Brenda hated her for all that, with the fire of a thousand deep-fryers.

"It’s the rhythm of the entire scene," Brenda wheezed, her face a shade of purple that hadn't been seen since the invention of the eggplant. "They... they give them... a different... frequency." And unfortunately for Brenda, her radio receiver of life just wasn't able to tune into what Maya's dial was set at.

Brenda’s eyes, narrowed into slits of righteous suspicion, shot sideways. She watched Maya’s toned legs move in perfect circles. Brenda’s own legs were moving in something more akin to a jagged trapezoid, accompanied by a sound like a wet boot being dragged through a swamp.

Every time Maya took a graceful sip from her sleek, designer water bottle, Brenda felt a surge of hypocritical fury. Brenda, who had polished off a three-pack of "Freedom Sliders" and a Diet Coke in the parking lot only twenty minutes prior, considered Maya’s hydration to be an elitist affectation. Brenda believed that Maya only hydrated herself, to look cute; while she choked on air.

"Look at her," Brenda muttered to herself, her voice a low, gravelly rasp of resentment. "Probably drinks... rain-forest water... collected by... monks. I’m out here... doing the real work... the heavy lifting... for the soul of the country." And with that body of hers, Brenda wasn't lying about the heavy lifting.

Brenda decided, in a moment of pure, deluded ego-madness, that this was a race. A race for the very future of the Republic, and some mythical social media audience's favorite episode award. She gripped the handlebars with white-knuckled intensity, her knuckles disappearing into the folds of her velour sleeves. She was going to show this girl what "Real American" stamina looked like.

She began to pedal. Not with form, but with fury.

The bike groaned. It was a high-end piece of German engineering, but it hadn't been stress-tested for the sheer kinetic energy of a woman fueled by spite and saturated fats. Brenda’s MAGA hat began to bob rhythmically. She was a blur of velour and sweat, a localized hurricane of misplaced ambition.

"I’m... winning!" Brenda screamed internally. "The silent... majority... is... OVERTAKING!"

Maya didn't even look over. She was lost in the beat of the music, a faint, enigmatic smile on her lips. She was completely unaware that she was currently the antagonist in a high-stakes sociopolitical drama occurring three feet to her right. To Maya, Brenda was just a very loud, very damp woman in a red hat who seemed to be having some sort of cardiovascular event.

"Oh, you think... you’re so... untouchable?" Brenda hissed, her sweat now cascading off her chin like a leaky faucet. "You think... because you’ve got... the tattoos... and the curves... and the core strength... that you can... replace me?" "I finally have a man you takes me places", was Brenda's motivating internal voice.

The irony was thick enough to clog a fuel line. Brenda, a woman who demanded respect for her "traditional values," was currently vibrating with such intense jealousy that she was technically violating several local ordinances regarding noise and air pollution. She was the hero of her own story, a martyr on a stationary bike, suffering so that the world might know the glory of her resentment.

Suddenly, the instructor—a lean woman who looked like she was carved out of a single piece of driftwood—shouted, "AND NOW, THE FINAL SPRINT! GIVE ME EVERYTHING!"

Brenda didn't give her everything. She gave her more.

She stood up on the pedals. The bike screamed. Brenda’s face transitioned from purple to a terrifying, translucent white. She was a Valkyrie of the suburbs, a warrior for the cause of being perpetually offended, and victimized. She glared at Maya, a look of such concentrated, evil-eye malevolence that it should have melted the leopard print right off Maya's sports bra.

"THIS IS FOR... THE BORDER!" Brenda roared, though it came out as a wet, turkey-necked dying squawk.

At that exact moment, the burger grease from the parking lot made its inevitable, treacherous move. Brenda’s foot slipped from the pedal. Her momentum, fueled by a decade of repressed anger and high-cholesterol snacks, carried her forward.

The bike didn't move—it was bolted to the floor—but Brenda’s dignity departed at high velocity. She slumped forward, her chest hitting the handlebars with a thud, like a sack of cement being dropped from a roof. Her MAGA hat flew off, skittering across the polished floor like a panicked crab.

Silence fell over the class, except for the thumping techno beat.

Maya finally stopped pedaling. She looked down at Brenda, who was currently draped over the bike like a discarded tracksuit, gasping for air with the desperate intensity of a beached whale.

"Are you okay?" Maya asked, her voice soft, melodic, and utterly devoid of the mockery Brenda so desperately craved. "Do you need some water?"

Brenda looked up. Her hair was a matted disaster. Her face was streaked with salt, snot, and the remnants of a very cheap foundation. She looked at Maya’s outstretched hand—a hand of genuine, unearned kindness—and felt her heart swell with a fresh, revitalized hatred. If looks could kill, Maya would've been in an ambulance on her way to the ER.

"I... I don't... need... your... handouts!" Brenda gasped, clutching the handlebars as if they were the last vestiges of her pride. "I was... just... adjusting... the... alignment!"

Maya shrugged, a gesture of pure, nonchalant grace, and hopped off her bike. She picked up Brenda’s red hat, handed it back with a polite nod, and walked toward the exit, her leopard-print sports bra and sleek black shorts shimmering in the fluorescent lights.

Brenda sat there, alone on her iron steed, trembling with the weight of her own self-righteousness. She jammed the hat back on her head, slightly crooked, and looked around the room.

"She’s... intimidated," Brenda whispered to the empty air, her eyes wild with the frantic light of the truly deluded. "She saw... the power. She couldn't... handle... the truth."

Brenda began to pedal again, slowly, painfully, her velour suit squeaking against the seat. She was defeated, exhausted, and likely on the verge of a minor stroke, but in the warped, magical, theater of her own mind, she had just won the greatest victory of her life.

Stay tuned friends, to see when and where Brenda will strike next.