Can't Not Hear Them

At the gym the other day I headed over to the exercise bicycles.  I prefer the old fashioned style over the recumbent bikes because I work harder on those.  My gym has 4 of those style.  Two guys were using two of them already and they looked like they were talking to each other so I didn't want to get between them.  I chose the last one outside of the two talking guys.  I got on and started pedaling figuring I'd do this about 10 minutes before going to use the weight machines.  I had just come off of the stair master so my heart rate was up there already at about 120.  I like to stay between 120 and 140 during the cardio section of my workout. I started pedaling and regretted not having a book to read this time to help pass the time.  The guys were talking loudly and laughing.  We're in front of a long bank of television sets and the guys were talking about football.  I tuned them out pretty well.  When the newscaster got back to local news these two guys were commenting on that as well.  I'm booking along happily on my bike until the news station showed film of Highway 94 being blocked by the black lives matter protest.  I know that I live in a conservative part of town; the part of town that repeatedly elected Michelle Bachman.  I accept my lonely life as a liberal feminist in Anoka County. I live in the part of town where people are fearful and uses fear mongering for political gain.  They talk about political correctness as if it were a bad thing.  So when these two bloviating cyclists started talking about black lives matter, I started biking faster.  They throw out a couple racist comments.  I can't not hear them because they're yelling over 5 empty bikes. I bike faster.  By the time one of them says, "They should take a fire hose on those protesters and wash them down the drain," my Exercycle tells me that my heart rate is at 146.  I get off my bike even though I have four minutes left.  I wash down the handles of the Exercycle and walk away.  I can't not hear them.  I don't know the whole story.  I wasn't there and I don't listen to the television media's sensationalist renditions.  I don't care who they are or what they did, no one deserves to be washed down a drain.  A better person might have used this opportunity for education.  I just walked away and used the anger they incited to me to lift heavier weights with more energy than usual.