Three Cheers for Spandex!!

I apologize to all those whose week revolves around reading my postings…I have been so busy righting the wrong’s of the world that I lack the time necessary to adequately describe to you my accomplishments. Alas, it’s onerous but, dutifully, I press on…

I saw a gigantic male specimen this weekend. No, I’m not talking about Jerry Springer “haven’t left my house in 3 years” huge…I’m talking about steroid muscle huge. Conservatively, he stood 6’ 4”, tipped the gym scales at no less than 250 lbs., and had not an ounce of fat on him. Believe me, I could tell he had no fat because, despite it being 40 degrees outside, he was wearing three sizes too small of a sleeveless undershirt (a.k.a. “wife beater”), four sizes too small spandex shorts (talk about shrinkage!!), and mid-calf white socks that conveniently doubled as his cell phone holder. To me, this guy is known as “scary gym guy”.

You know the guy I’m talking about…if you’ve every darkened the door of a work out facility, he’s the guy that spends half of his waking hours at the gym (the other half spent masking the use of “enhancers”). He may or may not have a job, but blow me down if he doesn’t have a body carefully sculpted by hours of injections, uh sorry, repetitions with numerous weights. He prowls the gym in a state of perpetual flex, always offering to spot you should you foolishly choose to put too much weight on your bar. You can spot this guy a mile a way, not only because of his enormous, steroidal size, but also because he is grunting and screaming loudly as if receiving a severe, Singapore-esque beating while completing his set (as an aside, you should always receive a severe beating for creating this type of bedlam and ruckus in public). Upon completion, he loudly drops the bar of weights on the ground and proceeds to contort into every manner of flex pose in front of the mirrors, admiring the needle’s, uh sorry, the weight’s handiwork.

After a workout, he heads to the locker room. He wanders about the room in various states of undress, making eye contact with everyone. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: making eye contact with any male in a state of undress in the locker room is an extreme violation of recognized social laws. If you happen to make eye contact, you are to quickly avert your eyes to the floor, where they should have been in the first place. It is infinitely better to stare at the floor and run into the lockers than look up to see where you are going and inadvertently make eye contact with another naked male. Scary gym guy fears no reprisals by mere mortals…he sits naked on benches, wanders towel-less into the sauna, and generally reeks every manner of nude havoc in the hour and half it takes him to get ready to go to…where…I don’t know; he certainly can’t be gainfully employed…he spends far too much time at the gym. After donning wife beater and spandex, he gulps an energy bar and crams his gargantuan frame into the tiny German sports car listing to one side and heads on down the road.

Scary gym guy freaks me out, hence the name. I just hope one day I can spend a day as scary gym guy…just to see what it’s like to brazenly waltz nude through the locker-room ogling myself in every mirror (I mean, I do this at home already but my dog has no appreciation). Of course, I would need to start logging the injections…sorry…repetitions necessary to get that big…which isn’t going to happen…I’ve got too many other wrong’s to right. Happy lifting!!

America at Risk: Righting the Wrongs

My beautiful wife says I’m prone to ranting. I prefer to call it “righting the wrongs in society”. It sounds infinitely nobler. I am a modern day Robin Hood. I can, at any moment, commence to orate vehemently about something for which I am convicted. I owe it to my mother (thanks mom) and her fiery spirit. I still remember the time someone ran her off the road with my sister and me in the car. The other motorist got out to assure that everyone was alright and I thought the next time I saw my mom would be during visitation hours…in prison…she lit into that motorist with a passion and fervor not soon forgotten. Just righting wrongs, righting wrongs.

So allow me to right some wrongs: our society is coming apart at the seams and we stand by idly. Do I speak of moral decay in America? Hardly. Or the expansion of government to new levels of waste? No. Nothing as trivial as those. I’m speaking of the “do it yourself” movement. It all started in the 1970’s. At one time, gas stations were all full service. You drove in, visited with your attendant; he washed your windows, checked your oil, and pumped your gas while you waited. Maybe we paid for it in the price of gas, but it was a service that was offered and we appreciated it. Then came the evil of the self service pump island, and society has been in a downward spiral ever since. The price of gas didn’t go down for the self service island; it went up for the full service island. A piece of the fabric of our society was gone forever, a piece my mother-in-law refuses to let go: she continues to frequent the full serve island. Henceforth, she has earned my profound respect.

Alas, we cannot stem the tidal onslaught. There are self serve, pay at the pump islands where I myself pump my gas and pay for it. Do I get paid for doing the work of the gas station attendant? A resounding “No”. Or how about at my local, to remain nameless, grocery store? Like Asian bird flu, the spread of self serve checkouts is ever rapidly expanding and we are powerless to slow it. Until I get a paycheck for ringing up my own groceries, bagging my own groceries, and executing the final payment transaction, the self serve checkout lane shall remain void of my participation. A grocery clerk used to be a position reserved only for the best. I myself was one…clerks had to memorize 75 produce codes, identify every manner of odd produce that no one consumes, and still maintain a rate of at least 25 items scanned per minute. Now, any peon can perform these tasks…albeit; perform them rather poorly in my humble opinion. Lo, what depths to which we have fallen. Even my local, to remain nameless, home improvement store has a self serve checkout! My friend H and I agreed that someday we’ll show up and buy 500 2x4’s 16ft. long and proceed to ring them up individually in the self serve check out line. Self serve that!! I’m sure the day will soon come when I roll into my local, to remain nameless, restaurant, seat myself, order my food, and then run to the back to prepare it. It’s going to be phenomenal…I’ll finish eating, bus my own table, and then leave $8.99 on the table on the way out.

I am loath to allow myself to slip into such decay and you should be as well…champion the cause…keep the fabric of America intact…leave a better America to the next generation…fight for your right to partake of customer service…just say no…to self service and doing someone else’s job for them. You can count on me to rant, er’ right the wrongs of society…now, what’s the code for butternut squash…