basilwhite (basilwhite) wrote,
basilwhite
basilwhite

BasilWhite.com: I see the gym employee's face in the punching bag.

I go to the gym and hit the punching bag. The heavy big canvas bag in the gym that no one uses? You use the complimentary one-day pass and the gym drone follows you around says "We're going to build your health profile. Try this machine," and they take notes and invite you into the office for your results, which are that you're a shambling mound of fat and you need an immediate program of giving them access to your checking account so they can continue to take membership dues even after you threaten to sue and send them a notarized letter so you cancel your checking account which bounces all your outstanding checks and runs up bounced check fees and ruins your credit rating for seven years? Yeah, that canvas bag.


They put it in the corner of the aerobic room 'cos no one uses it, but when men take the tour they ask "got a heavy bag?" 'cos it sounds macho. They put it in the aerobics room so you can't use it during aerobics classes, which are going on all the time. But I use the heavy bag anyway. I tape up my hands, put on my MP3 player of the laudest music I own - Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Flag, Ministry - and I pound the bag, and sometimes I sing. 'Cos if you use the machines, the gym employee vultures will swoop on you and offer to be your personal trainer for more money than your first car cost, so I go and hit the heavy bag and sing along to death metal. 'Cos if someone's willing to interrupt a fat guy pounding a canvas bag in an empty room singing along to Iron Maiden's "The Number of The Beast," they deserve a fair hearing to what they have to say. Which is usually, "I'm sorry, we're starting an aerobics class, and some of the students might be pregnant or might
want to become pregnant and your screaming and hitting might curdle her womb, preventing implantation of fertilized eggs, and someday a youth soccer team won't have a fullback."

Or, "Hi, I'm Brad. Sorry to bother you, but I noticed you haven't taken advantage of our offer to try a personal trainer for a free hour to ream you of even more money." Now, if it's the aerobics instructor, I go "Sure," and go home and eat Funyuns which is what I wanted to do in the first place. But if it's Brad, I read my prepared speech. "I'm not here for fitness, Brad. I hit the bag for anger therapy, and you just cost me another 45 minutes," and crank up the Iron Maiden and start singing "Brad, Brad, Brad." I already have a life coach. His name is Jack Daniels. Between the heavy bag and Coach Jack, I'm building a life strategy. I'm finally taking care of me.

http://www.basilwhite.com
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