You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
the local work out club.
It’s a small space with too many machines crammed into a room covered with mirrors.
Like a fish tank with fermenting algae, this sweat box stinks.
When there are just a few of us in the work out room, this space is fine. A few machines for a few people goes a long way.
But the college boys are back in town. And All the high school boys are coming in now too.
All available oxygen is depleted, replaced with a funky stench that can only be described as wet sock.
The boys are back in town. It sounds like a Thin Lizzy Song. But that would be too good for what this is. The boys are back in town means delts and pecs and fist bumps. It’s sweat and pimples and hair products dripping down a jerry curl slapping against a greasy forehead.
The buff boys are home. Yipee. Hey look at my biceps. Aren’t they stone cold bad ass?
The boys of summer stare into the mirror hoping everyone will buy a ticket to their gun show.
The boys of summer are a disjointed jamboree of perspiration and crazy dreams.
The 15 year old man-children are now joined by the 16 year old wanna be’s. The 16 year old wanna be’s are squeezed into the corner by the soon to be seniors. The soon to be seniors think they are all that and a bag of chips. They play High School football and act like they have driven down from Mt. Olympus in their four by four pick up trucks.
The boys of summer are all here, in this tiny work out room. They are all here grunting and flexing and staring at the mirror. What stares back at them is a lobotomized horde of flesh talking in monosyllabic grunts and burps and farts.
Every so often, some one will even move a weight around. You know a weight has been moved because when they do pump iron, it so dramatic, so flamboyant, it’s like a topless dance in Rio. Hurky and jerky and breathless gasps of masculinity. The air is ripe with unsafe lifting practices.
And then when the reps are complete, the iron hits the floor in a sonic thud. It’s a rude way to work out.
I try to ignore the work out boys, but they are thick in the tiny room. They are noxious like skunk sprayed into a broom closet.
I watch them as they watch themselves. When they do curls, their eyes gaze past their own reflection to the MILF’s on the treadmill.
I sense their secret longings. Their vibe is testosterone driven and it’s subtle like a bull horn.
Ah, yes. Thank Goodness they have opened up the community club house to the boys of summer.
If they were not here it would just be the me and the old ladies and few soccer dads trying to work off that impossible to lose side fat.
Now I got the boys to entertain me, to take my mind off the minutes and the miles. Now I got sportscenter on the plasma, and the boys fist pumpin and beating their chests like a white boy’s version of hammer time.
They start pushing the pins into the bricks and yanking on the cables.
clank. clank. clank.
I cast them a glare. I feel old. I’m clint eastwood on the eliptical and want to scream get the F off my lawn.
I want to point out the poster that says don’t slam the weights.
I want to grab one of these guys by the scruff of the neck and let him see what an old sweaty elyptical guy can do.
I wonder what would happen if I held him down and squeezed the sweat out of his own t shirt into his mouth.
How you like them apples Boy of Summer!But I turn up the music in my ear buds and keep to myself. I am often thought of as the Kofi Annan of world peace.
The last thing we need is an international incident in the work out room.
I finish my session and spray the eliptical with cleansing mist.
I wipe the machine and leave the room.
The parking lot is filled with jacked up four by four trucks, all recently flown here from Mt. Olympus.
I laugh out loud.
Till we meet again boys of summer. Till we meet again.
And that is crazy.™