"Eeegah, eeegah, uh, uh, uh, Eeegah."
"That's right, Bro. Yeah...yeah."
"Eeegah, eeegah, uh, uh, uh, Eeegah."
"Aw shit, yeah. Do it. Do it!"
"EEEGAH, EEEGAH, UH, UH, UH, EEEGAH."
Oh come on. It's crap like this that makes me absolutely hate the gym. Are these guys serious? I mean, don't they realize the spectacle that they are making of themselves? These conversations are not just meant to be between the lifter and the liftee, but have to be for everyone at the gym to experience. Here I am listening to this exchange from across the gym, while jumping between MSNBC, Animal Planet and the Cartoon Network, and I am wearing headphones that cannot block out the screams, grunts and yells. It annoys me to no end.
My first reaction to the, "Uh, uh, uh, Eeegah," desperate cries for attention is to laugh uncontrollably, but if I were to have this reaction, the following could occur:
a) said meat-heads pound Donist because he is a Rachel Madow, cute puppy, and Batman watching girly-man, who is not physically strong enough to protect himself from cavemen.
b) when Donist laughs too hard, he loses all control of his muscles and ends up collapsing into his elliptical trainer, and bits of eye glasses, fat, a piece of his Strong Bad T-shirt, and gray/white hair are all that remain embedded within the equipment's gears.
c) I am deemed to be one of the many insane folks that can be found at the gym and I suddenly no longer have elliptical trainer neighbors...yes...nice.
d) some mixture of all of the above.
I can fully understand small grunts or subtle words of encouragement, but this is literally screaming. When did this sort of behavior become acceptable? In between the hollering there is much grandstanding and preening in the many mirrors and other members of this exclusive group of "grunties" gather around their brethren in a ever shrinking circle, and I have to assume that these displays are partially for them.
Maybe, I'm just jealous? Nope. I like being able to stand up tall and have my arms touch my sides, even if there is a bit of gooeyness in between. I also go to the gym to get my exercise on the days that I am not running outdoors, or being forced inside due to inclement weather. I will freely admit that the weight room area of the gym intimidates me, as much as it freaks me the hell out, and I will only venture into the area if it is not packed with screamers, but it usually is. The plan is to use weightlifting to give me the muscles of a dancer that I will never, ever achieve, but that has always been the plan. Most of my life has been spent trying to bulk down, so I have no designs on trying to bulk up. Plus, those guys over there are weird and scary.
In between the screams and Animal Planet's details of the life of the platypus, I have always wondered if the grunties think that these displays will attract women, but I cannot see how this line of thinking could ever work; not on the sane women anyways. I remember once at the music store, I was talking to a female friend of mine, when one of my coworkers came up to us, interrupting our conversation.
The man's name was not Tim, but I will call him that. Tim lifted weights--often--and he always wanted to tell everyone about how much he was lifting, how difficult it was, and how he was not yet where he wanted to be bulk-wise. There were many occasions that we caught him looking in the mirror and flexing his muscles in the employee bathroom with the door left intentionally open. "Donist," he said, "dude, have you been lifting? You're looking kinda ripped."
I replied, "What? Uh...no. I haven't done that for ages. I have been eating a lot of fried chicken from the grocery store next door though."
I felt a bit embarrassed about this, but the woman I was talking to sighed heavily, snapped her fingers to get Tim's attention and said, "Tim. Look. I don't want to be mean, but you need to hear this. You always say how you want to find a nice woman, but you know what? Most women don't like guys that talk about bulking up and how much they can lift...they make fun of guys like that." Tim thought about this for a moment and wandered off to put away some more CDs. Was Kim a little mean? Yeah...she was, since Tim was a nice guy besides the whole meat-head thing, but he had interrupted us and he talked incessantly about bulking up. For all that I know, she might have helped the guy out, and that Tim is now happily married, with kids, white picket fence, a dog and a healthy body image that does not revolve around eating protein powder and doing other horrid things to himself. I hope that was the case.
I have to continue this tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment