Gyms

"Can I get a spot, bro?" asks the man curling in the squat rack.

I'm assuming he recently survived a rather harrowing attack from an escaped gorilla, as that is the only logical explanation for his shirt to be missing so much fabric that I feel like a liar for calling it a shirt. No one needs to see the entirety of your back and both nipples, dude. Malnourished Thai children didn't masterfully craft your clever shirt (Jewbacca? Oh I get it, because it's a Wookie with a yarmulke and nerd things are funny and this country has gone to shit) just so you could turn it into a toga starter kit.

"BRO! GODDAMN SPOT, BRO!" Curling in the squat rack is akin to pooping in a water fountain; aside from missing the original function entirely it is utterly contemptible, vile, disgusting, and lacking in consideration for one's fellow man. Plus he was only curling 70 lbs like a little bitch boy.

"You will not hurt anyone ever again." I say as I grab him by his collar, kick him in the chest a la Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Game of Death, and stand heroically. A vaguely eastern European woman, head scarfed with breadbasket in hand, comes up to me.

"Thank you save us. You are like hero."

"It was nothing, Olga. I'm just a man looking to lift heavy weights."

"May god protect forever you." She kisses my hand and departs.

Having vanquished Chad (He looked like a Chad. Is that a racist statement? I dunno, I'm kind of on the fence about that.) from the squat rack I begin my workout in earnest. Squats are squatted. Grunts are grunted. Sweats are sweated. After completing a particularly grueling set of squats I rest on the squat rack itself, a valiant knight basking in the glory of slaying dragons. A troop of small men with smaller necks approach. I first believe them to be peasants from Olga's rival village, most likely bringing peace offerings or shamanic blessings to curry my favor. Villagers give me shit, like, all the time. It's super cute.

"Excuse me, how much longer do you have?" asks the largest of the small men.

"Until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, until the rivers run dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before."

"What?"

"Five minutes."

Ten minutes later I leave for the pull up station and once there, I see her. Short brown hair glides over her sweet face, sweat beads down her soft white skin, Vibram Five Fingers adorn her yuppie feet. A CrossFit Aphrodite, she performs a set of 15 perfect form pull ups with the ease and grace of something that is really good at doing a lot of pull ups. I know only a handful of unassailable facts, irrefutable truths in this world; Obama was born in Nigeria, 9/11 was an inside job, the Holocaust was exaggerated. And I know that this woman must be mine. Summoning decades of torrid sexual conquest and training I approach her. I've learned in these situations it is best to speak sincerely rather than rely on convoluted pick up lines.

"Miss?"

She removes her headphones.

"I want to be inside you."

She puts her headphones back on.

Knowing that I have successfully planted a seed of lust I do not pursue her further. I complete my set of pull ups without incidence. Had their been incidence, I would have wrote about it. You're just going to have to trust me here. I have only one more exercise left in my routine, and make my way to the opposite side of the gym. As I near my goal I see a young man performing dumbbell military press. The weight appears to be a bit much for him, however, as I see his elbows slowly buckle. In a few brief seconds he may very well lose his fight with gravity. I could tell that without immediate intervention he was about to drop the weight on his head.

"You're about to drop the weight on your head," I said as he dropped the weight on his head. Proud of myself for accurately providing commentary for an in-progress tragedy I step over the now bleeding man and head towards the bench area.

If the squat rack is the Chapel of the Ascension, the dumbbell rack is Mount Sinai, and the Smith machine is, of course, a K-Mart in South Dakota then it follows that the bench area is Mecca. This most holy of sites is the culmination of any true bro's weight lifting pilgrimage, bro. After briefly becoming enthralled with my own reflection (I often wonder why every gym insists on having so many mirrors; it lends a funhouse-for-people-with-5%-bodyfat-and-low-self-esteem vibe) I refocus and load 405 onto the bar. Such a weight should not to be taken lightly, as it is fairly heavy. I approach the weight heavily, resting my hands on the bar. Whispering sweet nothings into the ever receptive ears of each individual plate, I promise I will be firm but gentle.

"I will love you forever. Don't ever leave me," I caress the weight, "or you'll be sorry. I swear to god you try to leave and I will fucking end you." Having proclaimed my unconditional love for the weight I slide onto the bench, but manly. All my mental preparation, all my training, has lead me to this singular moment along the space-time continuum. Muscles tensed, breath heavy, blood boiling. As I move the bar from the rack to directly over my chest I let out a guttural cry, a declaration that I am no slave to gravity. A declaration that had the apple hit me in the head I would have chucked that shit right back. I hear nothing of my fellow gym patrons, as they no longer exist. My focus has given way to bloodlust, and I allow it to wash over me, consume me. The weight is now on my chest, 405 pounds of iron resting, waiting, needing to be freed of the surly bonds of earth. I lift, and am free.
 

Gym

Rock Lobster awakens me from my slumber. It is 6 AM, or 0600 if you're an asshole. I briefly contemplate hitting the snooze, then less briefly wonder who invented the snooze button in the first place. I mean the point of an alarm is to wake you up, right? Well why would you add something that prevents an alarm from doing the only fucking thing it was created to do? That's like if every gun had one of those slapsticky BANG flags pop out before actually firing. I digress, for temporal assistance devices are not my concern at the moment; today is a weight training day, thus today is good.

 

It is now 6:30 AM, as the snooze button is an alluring temptress. I go through my regular pre-workout routine of eating waffles and crying in the shower for 10 minutes then depart for the gym. On my way I go over my lifting routine in my head. Visualizing each exercise, each rep, each awkward shuffle around a bunch of inappropriately dressed Middle Easterners (jeans and polos, c'mon dude) standing directly in front of the water fountain, all to prepare my mind for the onslaught I will subject my totes shredded muscles to. I then go over the virtue of modesty, and if I even need it. Continuing, I review what little I know of prepositions, and whether or not it's okay to end sentences with them. Finally, I conclude that I do not know how to think sentences in my head make nice pretty.

  

"Good morning! How are you doing today?" the swipe card lady asks.

"Lift heavy things," I reply. Visibly aroused by my laser-like focus she quickly hands me back my card and averts further eye contact.

"Fucking creep," she says, a ploy cover for her baser carnal desires. Such is the burden of a bro as jacked as I am, bro. Constant female attention at the most inopportune of times.

Steeling my nerve I walk past a plethora of cardio machines towards the weight room proper. Ellipticals, cardio bikes, treadmills, flunnels, sneedles, jibboos, gluppity-glupps, and other whimsical machines invented by Dr. Seuss take up a good majority of available gym floor. Every last one of them useless, every last one of them an affront to god. Many of my fellow gym patrons, these masters of time and money management, decided to get in their respective car, drive 10+ minutes to a gym and pay some douchetool wearing a shirt he bought from Baby GAP $30/month so they can walk. And we wonder how China is beating us in the arms (guns [biceps]) race. That's like bringing food to Chipotle and paying to cook there. If you just want to walk fucking go outside! Get some fresh air! But please, I implore you, do not waste precious gym space that could be used for literally anything else so you can leisurely stroll whilst digesting the latest episode of whatever drivel VH1 is shoving down the country's mouth this month.

Leaving the cardio machines behind I enter the locker room and run into an old friend. "Greetings, Old Naked Man."

"Greetings, Dominic. Shall I bend over in front of your face now or wait until you are tying your shoes?"

"No need today, Old Naked Man, I'm just here to use the weight scale."

"Ah, very well then. I'll just stand awkwardly near the exit so random passers-by may be subject to the abject horror that is my genitalia."

"Charming as always, Old Naked Man. I bid you good day."

I stow my things into the nearest locker and make my way towards the squat racks. What I see there shocks me, disappoints me, saddens me. And I know I'm the only man who can stop it from ever happening again.

WHAT DID OUR HERO SEE? WILL HE SURVIVE HIS LATEST GYM SESSION? WHERE WILL HIS ADVENTURES TAKE HIM NEXT? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE CONCLUSION TO DOMINIC COATS AND THE TEMPLE OF DUDEBROS!! SAME COATS TIME, SAME COATS CHANNEL!!

Riddles

Two trains leave Central Station heading in opposite directions. Train A leaves at 12 PM going south at 70 mph. Train B leaves at 1 PM going north at 80 mph. Train A's destination is 300 miles away. Train B's destination is 200 miles away. What will the distance between the two trains be before Train A's conductor realizes that his wife is having an affair with Train B's conductor?

Four co-workers (Bill, Betty, Barry, and Xanderpuss McWendy's) in the woods have just escaped from a violent battle royale between teenagers that was being held in the same area their Team Building Seminar was scheduled. They come to a river that has a small boat on the bank. Only two can cross at a time, one must be left on the opposite shore while the other pilots the boat back to the other co-workers. Bill, who is bleeding profusely from his stomach after a katana wielding preteen stabbed him, cannot be left alone on either shore. Betty cannot be left alone on either shore with Xanderpuss McWendy's because Xanderpuss has a cleft lip and Betty is all "eww, that's nasty." Barry cannot operate the boat because "who am I, fucking Poseidon? Tell Xanderpuss to do it, that little shit has been dragging ass since we killed those kids with Uzis." Xanderpuss is Xanderpuss. How do you get the four across without anyone dying?

 

You receive a coupon in the mail for Red Lobster. Your car has exploded majestically so you must walk. After walking some time you come to a fork in the road where two men are standing. You're like "well shit, this looks sketch" but you approach them anyways. A sign next to the man on the left says TRUTH TELLER. A sign next to the man on the right says DON'T BELIEVE THE LIBERAL MEDIA. You ask the men which is the way to Red Lobster. The man on the left says "The left road." The man on the right says "IMPEACH OBAMA!!" Which road do you take?

There are 100 marbles in a bag. 50 are yellow marbles and 50 are black marbles. I tell you to grab 50 marbles total from the bag, 25 yellow and 25 African-American. After that I mix the 25 yellow and 25 negro marbles together in a separate bag. Now I tell you to leave the yellow marbles in the bag and only grab the colored marbles. How do you do it? HINT: Affirmative Action is allowed.

Sammy, Sara, Steve, Saul and Stephanie are eating dinner at your place. Sammy cannot sit next to Steve because Steve murdered his dog on a whim last winter. Sara cannot sit next to Saul or Stephanie because they both incessantly invite her to their swingers club. Saul cannot sit next to Sammy because Saul is a vampire and Sammy is a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing. Stephanie cannot sit next to Steve because Steve murdered her dog on a whim last spring (Steve acknowledges he has a problem and is seeing a therapist). What is the optimal seating arrangement for your guests?