Newscaster
She comes into the gym almost every day. Whenever I see her, I always try to ignore her. She’s there to work out, not to be stared at by people who think she might be someone they know. It took me weeks to even figure out who she was. I just knew that she was a newscaster for local news. I’ve been on a news-fast since before September 11th, so I only knew that she was some news lady.
It was only a quirk of fate that matched her face with her name. I had been on the elliptical trainer, with nothing to watch on television for a few moments because both of my channels were on commercials. I looked down on the weight area and I saw that familiar news lady. Boring, she’s always here. I looked up at my television and her face looked back at me with her name: Mary Nickles. Ok, she must work at KUTV on the Morning News. That’s cool. At least I know her name now.
A few days later, she was in the locker room and a geriatric customer walked in. She took one look at Mary’s height and said, “You’re on TV.” Mary nodded politely and I tried to ignore the interaction, expecting a fawning fan. Instead, the older lady said, “Can you tell me where the bathrooms are?” It was as if she expected Mary to know everything just because she was on television. Mary was so nice to her, “They’re right over here. This place is kind of like a maze, isn’t it?” I was surprised the woman didn’t ask her to help her in the handicapped stall.
Yesterday, it was just me and another girl in the locker room. I was at that awkward moment of the day: changing out of my jogging bra. Mary walked in while I struggled with my undergarments. The girl said, “Wow, you’re pretty!” to Mary. The girl walked out while I tried to ignore them both. It seemed so strange to me to hear the girl give Mary such a pleasant and casual comment. Yes, Mary is amazingly pretty and much taller than I would have imagined, but I never think to compliment her. She’s famous, aren’t I supposed to just leave her alone?
I immediately wondered how often she hears a casual compliment like that. It made her seem like such a normal person to me and I felt guilty for ignoring her. I wonder which bugs her the most: the people who ignore her or the people who don’t. It’s probably the people who assume she knows everything because she’s on television. I should ask her someday.
Hi Laura-
I google my name every once in a while to see if anything strange has been written about me, and I came upon your entry. It is refreshing to hear what a non-viewer thinks of me, because, as you surmised, I get to hear from viewers often. I really do like people and I’m usually just being me, whether they know who I am or not. If someone stares, I don’t expect it to be because I’m on TV. It could be because I’m six feet tall, or because my hair looks crappy. I do hope that people like me though, because I’m a happy, stable, easy-going person, and I love hearing and telling stories. I have a fun, challenging, and strange job that people might know about, and besides any attention interfering with my kids and personal life (which doesn’t happen very often) I don’t mind being a freak-show-anchor-lady. (That’s what my 8-year old twins call me!) As for the gym… I started working out a couple times a week with a trainer who helped me lose 25 pounds a couple years ago. I’ve kept it off, and now I work out at the Xcel in West Jordan with my friend Debbie. I’ve never worked out more than two or three times a week though, so if it looked like I was there every day, there must be someone who looks like me, or maybe some other newslady! Thanks for the nice words, and next time say hi!
-Mary Nickles
Comment by Mary Nickles — 7/15/2005 @ 11:08 am
I loved the words that Laura said about Mary. Even more, I loved the response back from Mary.. I jumped on line today, to see if I could find a picture of Mary Nickles, to show my mother in law… She was going in for a new haircut and I told her to have the Stylist cut it and style it like Mary Nickles from Channel 2 News…. I think her hair is so cute and I knew that it would look great on my mother in law… Unfortunately, she doesn’t watch Channel 2 News, so she didn’t know what Mary’s hair looked like… Good thing her stylist did… She looks cute with her new haircut… Thank You Mary Nickles, for the “Mary Nickles cut”…. Dyan
Comment by Dyan — 10/6/2007 @ 7:25 pm