Sunday at the Gym

There is a complete lack of hotties at the GH branch of my sell-out fitness center. I say fitness center because it is 80% plastic, and everybody knows gyms are made of iron. While I am not looking for a wonderfully in shape woman to share my life with (this dumbbell is all paired up), I cannot help but notice how strange it is, as if a room in my fitness center had been rearranged.

I proceed to lift in this vacuum of non-hotness. Before long, I am drenched in sweat. Beads large as peas escape my pores and fall to the ground, as if they are weighed down themselves. I leave a watery mess on the benches I use, but that is easily remedied with the paper towels the fitness center supplies. I figure that since I am sweating, I may as well do it inside the steam room.

Except the steam room smells like cream of mushroom soup. Now this is not an exaggeration, and I am not trying to be creative. I have been trying to place the smell ever since I have been coming to this particular branch, and finally I had it. "Eureka," I had almost said out loud, but I didn't. Nobody likes a smart-ass.

I moved to the sauna, which I could tell had been redone recently. The wood still had that fresh from Ikea smell, which fit in pretty nicely with the orange pallor of the room. I don't know how that works, but it does. I wrap a towel around my midsection to protect the boys.

I love going to the fitness center. I always go for the hardcore lifts, like deads and squats. I feel more like a man every time I finish. Like a shot of testosterone has just been administered, hence the extreme vascularity. Arnold once said that the PUMP is more satisfying than reaching sexual climax. I wouldn't go that far, but it's pretty close.

I see a friend of mine I have not seen in a long time, as I am getting dressed, and I notice that he has become more massive than before, albeit at the cost of a paunch. He tells me he has been purposely trying to gain more mass to improve his basic lifts. "I love the gym, don't you?," he says with a smile. "Fitness center," I felt like telling him. But I didn't. Nobody likes a smart-ass.

Sundays at XS

Last Sunday, I brought my brother to XS for his basketball semifinals game. I was looking forward to shooting a few baskets myself that bright Sunday morning, but I knew that wasn't going to happen as soon as I saw the traffic around school.

Apparently, there was a women's volleyball tournament happening that day, and while I would normally embrace such a situation (specifically, a gym full of women in short-shorts), there's a proverbial ring around my finger, and can you spell "statutory rape"? Watching all these student athletes in their element, I felt pangs of regret and jealousy. I could have probably made varsity had I wanted to; if my passions had been redirected sooner. Then there would be more to me than just my rapier wit and pretty boy-ness.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the XS team's starting center making conversation with two volleyball players. The girls were most probably seniors and he was a freshman, but he towered over them in height. He is one of those guys who grow a full mustache at 12. It was really funny seeing these kids go at it. By then, one of the girls had her arm around him, and the other was giggling uncontrollably. And I thought to myself, "He got game."