I've been using the same gym for nearly a decade. In that time I've gone from 'whole' to 'swole' and then back to whole about three times. During the Chinese Communist Party Worldwide Virus that was Without Doubt from a Lab in Wuhan Pandemic or CCPWWVTWWDFALWP, the gym was shut. During those months I resorted to the even heavier weight and sweatier reality of reps to failure of life's purposelessness and the ab crunch of existential bleakness of being in an ever expanding universe. I also did a bit of online shopping.
Recently, I decided to work out on a Friday night, which is something I rarely do. I removed a rubber stirrup handle from one of the machines and tossed it approximately five feet onto the rubber floor and next to the machine that I was going to use it on next. However, this created a scene that completely changed my attitude towards 'youngsters'. While before I thought all teenagers were excellent and model citizens with good attitudes, nice haircuts and good taste in clothes, music, books and film, the incident at the gym on a Friday night changed all that. I now think they have crap hair.
Crap hair dude.
The young man who jumped to his feet from a shoulder press machine - identical to the one shown below - took umbrage at my tossing of the aforementioned stirrup handle. Now to be fair, he was sitting on the shoulder press machine on his phone and he was wearing a hat. The shoulder press machine is a popular place for phone folks to sit at the gym. As you can no doubt see from the illustration, the seat is padded both vertically and horizontally and it's helpfully reclined at a soothing and satisfying 60 degree angle.
This setup is perfect for phone-related activities at the gym, which explains why every time I go there's always somebody sitting on it staring at their phone. When I say somebody, I of course mean a teenager who believes that just by going to the gym their musculoskeletal system will be overwhelmed with guilt and spontaneously decide to grow. The biceps for example might say to the arms, "Oh come on fellas, he's made an effort to go to the gym, the least we can do for the guy is initiate some hypertrophy." This process is of course intensified if the person (teenager) reclining on the gym equipment combines important phone activities with smoking a vape and wearing a stupid hat. If you're curious enough, you might notice people never stare at a phone when they're using the lower back extension machine featured below, presumably because it places your spine at an uncomfortable 130 degrees.
You might have also noticed nobody is staring at their phone while using a rowing machine, a punching bag or one of those machines that flings baseballs at you. That's because they don't have the 'golden ratio' of comfort, time and stupid hat wearing to allow those crucial to our society Instagram influencers to influence. When you think about it, the seating position on the lower back extension is the same as the one on the lounge your elderly parents purchased on special. The reason the lounge was on special is that it gives you a permanent neck injury and you'll keep burning your nose as you try to sip your absurdly hot tea or coffee. It also means that technically your parents' complaint that you 'never come to see them' will be credible, because every time you visit them your head will be forced downward by the furniture and all you'll see is the floor.
If you wanted to damage this thing, you'd need fire.
During the inane argument launched by the stupid hat young man reacting to my stirrup handle outrage, my sympathetic nervous system took away the 'sym' and just left me with the 'pathetic'. When you're in 'flight, fight or freeze' your brain is instantly deprived of oxygen rich blood. Hatboy revealed he was taller when he jumped up to confront me about my genocidal activities tossing a rubber stirrup handle five feet onto a rubber floor. Because this triggered my sympathetics, my muscles confiscated all the blood and then locked my prefrontal cortex and amygdala in detention with a big TV that only played clips of Kamala Harris talking about the passage of time. So, my perspicuity suffered when I suggested it was inappropriate for him to go to 'defcan ten' over something that wasn't even an issue. Hattie jumped all over this mispronounced phrase with the enthusiasm he should've reserved for exercising or getting treatment for his antisocial personality disorder. After mocking me for being 'a moron' he wanted to fight me. He wanted to fight me because he was 'a member' and 'paid his dues' and I was clearly damaging the equipment. This was a textbook example of rationality and I was so impressed I wanted to take up the offer for a fight. But then my own version of rationality from a textbook from planet earth told me that engaging in fisticuffs with any insufferable teenage angerboy would result in being arrested and charged. Being arrested would prevent me from traveling and also extract essential dignity from my dignity gland. I withdrew my offer and so he countered with more insults about my intelligence, being old, not making sense and being a variety of other names starting with F, C and D.
No need to drink it, just take in the smugness - and lift.
But I discovered something great. Getting into a stupid argument with a young man who was dropped at birth by people who should have been neutered is a fantastic pre-workout! This nimrod made me so angry that I'm writing in italics for this entire sentence. But he also pushed so many buttons and triggered so many emotions related to my up until that point, unrealised potential for homicide, that I was able to lift to failure, do more reps, lift heavier weights and get more done for the rest of my workout. My system was so primed, I felt like I was eighteen again and wanted a shit haircut. When I got home I was still angry, but I was pumped, I was really pumped - I even thought about the Roman Empire for the first time ever.
vae victus you little turd.
