Machines warm up just as you do. Pleather-finished foam grips on an elliptical yield slightly under sweating palms. It’s too hot today to run outside so you’re at Planet Fitness. It’s so hot that it’s cold inside, so you forget that it’s hot outside.

Following an agonizing leg day, you get into your car parked in the middle of the lot. Machines warm up just as you do. The cloying smell of the simulated leather interior is emphasized in this 93 degree weather. Legs stick to seat. It will hurt to peel yourself out of the car later. Isn’t it weird that it’s the inside of a car that is finished with skin. And not the outside? Like everything else that has skin? Like Snooki’s matte black snakeskin-wrapped Hello Kitty Escalade?