Thoughts, Ideas, and quick stabs

Chapter One - BOB

Ok, today is Friday and that always means it’s “Bob Day”. What is “Bob Day” you aks? Well it’s Monday, Wednesday & Friday, never fail; where Bob is at the gym. Never fail? Nope, not once! This guy shows up at 4:45 am, and waits for them to open the gym, never misses, never takes off (maybe one week a year). He’s the first one on the sign in list each of those days. Makes his way downstairs into the gym first, heads to the locker room, and then straight to the bench press.

You may be asking what is so wrong. Well, nothing actually if you can get past all the weird quirks that he has. For example, he is always at the gym at 4:45 (gym opens at 5:00 am), when the person that is opening shows up, he gets out of his car, opens the back door and gets his clothes out. Opens the front door again and locks the car (this is where the fun begins – I had to get there one morning to witness this, because I’ve been told about it). Then he checks the back door, walks around and checks the trunk, checks the other back door, checks the passenger door, checks the back door again, checks the trunk again, checks his back door again, checks his door again. Ok, finally, ready to go in. He makes his way down stairs (the gym is in the basement of this strip mall). No lights are on, and it’s pitch black. He goes into the locker room and sits until they turn on the lights. Puts his stuff in the locker, and then proceeds to check and make sure all the locks on all the lockers are locked tight. He checks his lock about 5-10 times (never counted this one, but it’s a bunch).

Now, we’re off to workout. He comes sprinting out of the locker room, rotating his arms in big circles as he is walking to the back of the gym to the benches. He gets on the flat bench. Immediately throws 225 lbs on the bar, and begins to do what he calls bench presses, but they are only movements of about 3-4 inches. And the fun part for the rest of us is, he counts ever F’ing rep out loud, in a voice that sounds like someone having an orgasm or something. 10 reps, never more, 3 sets exactly. Next is over to the free standing benches where he does a variety of movements (god only knows what the hell they are) for exactly 50 minutes. (you can set your watch by him). Skipping on, later he’ll get to the leg press machine, (this is my favorite to watch), he loads 5 plates on each side, and counts them as he loads them, then steps into the center section and counts the right side from outside in, and then inside out. (ok, still 5 plates), now to the left, outside (1,2,3,4,5) and inside (1,2,3,4,5). Now both at the same time; outside (1,2,3,4,5) inside (1,2,3,4,5) and ONE MORE TIME. Wow, finally he’s ready. Down he goes, 25 of his reps (we call them “Bob reps” – because the range of motion is about 3 inches)

Ok, so you are asking yourself, what? What is it? Well, there’s more. First, he wears the exact same clothes every day. Long sleeve shit that looks like it’s been put through a grinder, with yellow stains (I swear the guy sweats yellow). And he sweats, I mean sweats, a ton. Lets it drip all over the bench. He is nice enough to wipe it up when he’s done, but still. The way I look at it is, if someone pee’d on the bench there is no way you would ever use it, but we look past all the sweat. But urine is clean, and sweat carries a ton of germs (including the very easily transferred ringworm)

Now it’s 7:30 and he’s off to the locker room to shower and put on his suit, yes a full suit. Only to take the coat off as soon as he gets to his car. Oh, did I mention that he parks in the exact same parking spot every morning? Even though they have moved the entrance door to the gym down the way about 50 feet.

And this is only chapter one to the stories of my gym. Stay tuned, you will love the rest.