Monday, April 22, 2013

“Here come the kids”: A 95% true story


I haven’t written any blog posts since my first one. My last blog post was about agnostics and the existence of God. So every other topic I've thought of writing about since has seemed kind of out of character. So, I’ve decided just to just break character and write about a day at the gym.

Have you ever gone to the gym, not to work out, but for the sole purpose of taking a shower? Let me explain:

My parents got a new dishwasher. I was upstairs while they were trying to install it when I heard a commotion. I went downstairs to see what happened. Apparently, they had forgotten to turn off the water to the dishwasher before taking out the water intake hose. Water was spraying everywhere! We grabbed buckets and we tried to direct the water from the hose into the buckets. I ran and grabbed a wrench to try shut the valve to the water intake. When we tried to turn the valve off with the wrench, the valve broke. So, we came up with the idea to turn the water off to the entire house.  This solved the problem.

So, here I was, covered in dishwasher water, and I had to go to work in an hour. I asked my dad what the chances were that we’d be able to turn the water back on before I went to work. He told me chances weren’t good. This is why I went to the gym just to take a shower.

Now, if you’ve never walked into the gym in workout clothes and walked out of the gym in a dress shirt and tie, it’s an interesting experience. You get some strange looks from the people at the front desk. There’s no real way to cover up the fact that you went to the gym just to shower. I thought about maybe going,

“I came in here, got in shape, found a wife, and found a job! Now I’m done with the gym! I’m successful!”

So, I took a shower, and I was almost done getting dressed when a guy came in from swimming. He proceeded to take off his swimsuit, which wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary. After all, I was in a locker room. What was perplexing was what he said before he took off his swimsuit. He said,

“Here come the kids!”

………

Now, I don’t know why he decided to say this. I have 3 guesses as to what he was trying to say.

1.     He could have meant there were actually kids coming in from the pool. If this were the case, why would he wait until this specific moment to take off his swimsuit? Is he thinking, “The kids are coming, so now is the time to take off my drawers!”  I question your timing sir. I feel like I should have perhaps followed him out of the gym to make sure he didn’t go to any public parks.

2.     My second guess as to what he meant was that perhaps “The Kids” is some kind of stage name he had chosen for his nether regions. To which I would respond, “I don’t really need an introduction. But I appreciate your dedication to stage presence and presentation” Also, I would ask, “If you, in fact, chose this name for your “down theres” why would you choose “The Kids” Why not something a little more manly? Like “Here comes the thunder” perhaps

3.     My third guess of this man’s intentions is that he was, in fact, referring to his privates in a physiologically accurate way. After all, that’s where kids come from. If this were true, I would say to him, “ I don’t really need ‘the talk’. I’ve had it before, but I appreciate your concern for my education.” But I realized that if, in fact, he is giving “the talk” to people, he is doing so by taking off his pants!

After all of these, things went through my head, I realized that this stranger had giving me A TON of material for my next blog post and I wanted to thank him. Now, bear in mind, that I have a tendency to take an awkward situation, and make it more awkward. So, in an attempt to express my gratitude, I tapped him on the shoulder and said,

“Thank you so much for what you did. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me.”

……

I realized what I said after I said it. I also realized that there was no possible way to recover from what I said. So, I just walked away.

I saw the man again at the gym, and it was still awkward. So, in order to break the ice, I misguidedly said the first thing that came to my mind,

“So, how are the kids?”