I work out every single day; sad, but true. Despite an exercise regimen that’s pretty impressive for someone of my advanced age and weight, I still look like this big, giant tub of goo.
The fancy digital scale at our house will tell you that my weight fluctuates back and forth between "Whoa, lay off the fried food, Buddy...or, better yet, lay off the food," and "Hey, only one person on the scale at a time."
About the only tangible thing that I get from the working out is, when I go to donate blood, the double-take that the guy taking my blood pressure does when he sees that my pressure is normal...for a normal-sized human being.
I'm healthy as a horse and, until recently, I've had virtually no stress in my life. (If I could lose the weight, I'd live to be 150.) The recent bout of stress came from an unlikely source, what my children refer to as a First World problem. My car hit 100,000 miles, so I went to buy a new one. It's a really unsound financial principle that I have followed for decades.
From the first car I even owned—a raggedy, paintless VW bug that I named Eva (Braun)—I've always had music in the car. I started with eight-tracks, moved on to cassettes and then to CDs. I ultimately put together a collection of a couple thousands CDs, including 17 with jewel cases that didn't have a crack in them. And, of course, of the thousands of CDs, I pretty much listened to the same 10 or 12 all the time.
So I get the new car and it doesn't have a CD player. It has a Bluetooth that I'm supposed to sync up to my smartphone. Until about four years ago, I didn't own a phone, smart or otherwise. Then I started carrying around an old white flip-phone in my car for emergencies, e.g, calling home to make sure that we have enough Parmesan cheese. My children eventually got me a phone that looked like theirs, but really could only be used for texting. When I tried to sync it to my new car, I found out that it wasn't a smart phone; it was a Donald Trump IQ phone. My son told me that it had the computing capability of two potatoes in a bucket of water.
I had to buy a new phone so I could listen to music in the new car (First World problem). It still isn't synched up all the way and I find myself yelling at Google Girl when I don't get the correct version of the song I want. I mean, really, how can a machine possibly get Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On" wrong?
The other day I was pulling into the parking lot of the fitness place and I was already heated after being forced to listen to an acoustic version of "Uptown Funk" in some Slavic language. I walked in and the very nice people who work there all greeted me by name. They're really cool, but I have this suspicion that there's an office pool as to when I will either pass out or explode.
I did my initial 20 minutes on the Modern Torture Device and then moved on to the weights. It was then that I had the epiphany. Remember when Rudy Giuliani wiped out all crime in New York City, not by going after murderers and rapists but by cracking down on the people who hopped the turnstiles and rode the subway without paying? (Actually, that did sorta happen. Too bad Giuliani didn't just fade away after 9/11. He'd be remembered as a national hero instead of a clown with Trump butt-crack residue on his nose.)
I think we can start making our society better by getting rid of people who don't wipe down their exercise or weight machines after using them. How is it possible that there are so many people who have no mothers?
What's odd is that the vast majority of incredibly rude jerks fit into a certain category. They're guys in their late 20s/early 30s. They walk into the place like they're all bad and when they lift a weight, they hold it an extra beat, just in case anybody is watching. (Note to Jerk: I might be watching, but no women are.) In a way, I think God has already punished them by taking away their ability to understand the importance of Leg Day. They all seem to be built like an olive supported by two toothpicks.
Anyway, they sit in a weight machine, all sweaty and stuff and then they linger. They all seem to wear Dri-fit shirts, although they're never dry and they rarely fit. They do a set of weights, then, while other people are waiting, they sit in the machine and do stuff on their phone, not realizing the proven scientific fact that a male's testicular capacity is in inverse proportion to the number of times he touches his phone each day.
When they finally get up, they leave a swamp of butt and Axe and they don't wipe off the machine! I have a plan on how to deal with them. I'll try it out and let you know what it is and whether it worked.
