Yesterday’s post sparked a memory.
Many years ago I used to go to a much fancier gym. What made it fancier was mostly that they had tanning and things like spinning classes when that was cool, pilates when that was a thing, and at the moment they probably have whatever crazy shit is convincing people that they need to listen to aerobic techno at the moment.
But the fancier gym had a dark side. For whatever reason, you’d think that the weirdos would be attracted to the city rec. Not for whatever reason, but because we don’t imagine weirdos having money for things like exercise, even though it would probably help a lot of these hobos if they did some very light squats and some stuff for their lower backs. Because if they’re standing all day and then sleeping on the ground, they could use a little bit of muscle tone.
However, the fancy gym seemed to have more weirdos. Maybe they were giving away scholarships of some kind? Hey, you seem weird. Do you need a gym membership? Or maybe this is the result of a single beautiful mind working in the membership department, signing up weirdos who don’t even understand what’s happening.
One of my favorite weirdos was Boxer Brief guy. Who is exactly what he sounds like. The dude wore boxer briefs as shorts when working out, which was worsened by his habit of tucking his white t-shirt into them. And I’ve seen small shorts, I’ve seen boxer briefs. These were, no doubt, boxer briefs.
It was extra odd because he wasn’t in very good shape either. Shrimpy type. Which is fine, but I’d think that the last thing you’d want is for everyone to really be enjoying your milky thighs as you dangle from a bar (this is another hallmark of weirdos, their exercises taking the form of dangling from things or doing a single repetition of things resulting in a strange clanging noise and then moving on).
There were complaints to staff. Not from me. Frankly, he had a great side effect of clearing out an area, so I would try and use stuff in his wake, sort of like someone tailing an ambulance to cut through heavy traffic. Except the ambulance is made of tight fabric and you’re pretty sure you can see a grown man’s balls BARELY CONTAINED.
The complaints didn’t work, mostly because the gym allowed women to exercise in short shorts and sports bras, so it was difficult to make a distinction here. I would argue that if you can see the word Hanes printed over and over around the waistband, that’s a good indicator. But hey, what do I know? I’ve never been a gym owner before.
There were plenty of other weirdos. Really Ripped Guy Who Wore a Fanny Pack Over His Crotch to Hold a Tape Player Walkman. Guy With Huge Upper Body and Very Small Legs Who Dropped Stuff On the Floor. Asian Man Who Was Nice Enough But Had a Body Positively Covered in Odd Bumps. Old Woman Who Mostly Took Shits As Her Exercise.
But not all were as welcome as those who created a small window of opportunity on the bench press or impregnated a bathroom with the stench of the dying breaths of a man who is passing away because he spent his life chugging diarrhea.
This is where we get to Obese Hot Tub Bather Man.
Again, pretty self-explanatory. But what the hell, if you’re still reading after the last couple paragraphs, might as well go for it here.
OHTBM was my least favorite.
For starters, he would wear his underpants into the hot tub. This was not debatable as with Boxer Briefs Guy because the underpants were tightie-whities. I don’t know how many of you have ever seen a very fat man in just tightie-whities, but it’s unpleasant. I sincerely hope that far fewer of you have seen a very fat man emerge from the hot tub in now-transparent tightie-whities, but if you have I’m sure you could describe it to me because I see it EVERY TIME I CLOSE MY EYES. The first time I attempt to make love to my wife after our wedding at Neuschwanstein castle, I will close my eyes and see all of the glory of this man’s crotch.
Okay, so being fat in a hot tub isn’t a crime. Yet. I know people, so we’ll see what comes out of the next few weeks and months. But for the time being, my issue isn’t really with his weight.
My issue is that this man was bathing in the hot tub. Not bathing in the way of being submerged in water. Bathing as in shampooing his hair and rubbing a bar of soap on his body. Yep.
I know people have strong opinions on hot tub filth. But a properly-maintained hot tub would probably have enough chemicals going that your skin would be nearly raw. The top layer melted. So is there any sort of necessity or advantage to using soap and shampoo while submerged?
It was nuts, man. You’d go in, and he’d be in there, huge arm lifted, flapping the uderfat with a bar of soap. Or, you’d go in there and know he’d been in earlier because of the yellowish foam along the edges of the tub. You know how in old times they would invade a village and throw a corpse in the well to poison the water? That’s basically what it was like. I can only imagine that when someone took readings on the hot tub chemicals it would be like the disaster movies when they discover an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. “This can’t be!” “I’ve never seen readings like this. Nothing like this!” “Remember when we found a dead possum in the hot tub and it had been cooking over night and you said it was the most apocalyptic toxic event we’d experienced to date? The readings here are over 1 million times that!”
You’d imagine OHTBM getting out, the water running through the leg holes of his underpants and stretching them out to all shit. With his tum-tum, really looking like a huge baby with a loaded diaper getting out of the bath.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this man. I’ve had to settle for lesser weirdos, Old Man Who Weakens Himself To The Point That He Takes The Elevator Up To The Workout Room, Outrageous Mullet Dude, and of course, Bum Bryan. But there will always be a soft spot in my heart for OHTBM.
I hope he’s okay. I mean, he was in terribly physical shape. But his hygiene plan that involved destroying the hygiene of all others seemed to be working for him, so who knows?