A Moron’s Epiphany

Sometimes, I surprise even myself with how clueless I am. Allow me to elaborate.

A few months ago while I was in the shower, I had an epiphany of monumental proportions. Now, I don’t know why most of my life-changing realizations occur while I’m blissfully washing the accumulated daily dingleberries from my posterior with my ‘sensitive skin’ llama-shaped loofa, but they always do. It’s almost as if the dark green mold growing in the folds of my shower curtain is hatching ideas, concepts and thought processes overnight only to spring them upon me while I’m blinded by shampoo.

Lather, rinse, epiphany, repeat.

On this particular day I did what every good father warns his sons to never do and dropped the soap in the shower. Quickly looking around to make sure that there were no other men present within the confines of my private bathroom, I reached down to pick up the soap from my scum and mildew covered bathtub floor. It was then that my life as I knew it came to an end. Right there, as I bent over in the shower with my soap-covered tushie exposed for the entire world to see, I came face to face with the ugly truth and found religion in an instant.

I had a belly.

Not just any belly, mind you, but a beer belly. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with a beer belly and I have a quite a few friends who are exceedingly proud of theirs. They’ve spent years in training, going from dive bar to dive bar, in an effort to acquire the perfect, oblong, almost-round belly shape. Many have even foregone fun-filled weekends with friends in order to ‘train’ the entire weekend by watching bad TV and eating pork rinds. Some women I know even enjoy their man’s manly belly, rubbing the “little pooch” and referring to it as their “baby”. But it’s different for me, y’see I don’t drink. That’s right, I’ve never had a drink in my life. Ever. And suddenly, almost overnight, I had developed a beer belly.

Small for a belly since I had caught it in the embryonic stage, but a belly nonetheless.

I was at a loss for words. I stood aghast, incredulous and flabbergasted as the water ran over my back, across my sides and fell from my stomach as if my belly button was a spout. I’ve always been the skinny one, the guy who women look at and curse for having better curves than they do. I was the beanpole, the stickman, a scarecrow but suddenly I looked like a straw that had swallowed a pea. I poked my new discovery and it jiggled back as if it were laughing at me, mocking my confusion and horror and proving beyond a doubt that it was really there. And then, as if to push me over the edge of sanity, it did the unforgivable.

My stomach made the ‘I’m hungry’ noise.

That was the last straw. However this malignant growth had come to be attached to my body I was going to make sure that it died an agonizing, horrible death. I quickly went into the city and joined HoBiscuit my girlfriends gym. I chose her gym because it’s a large chain with many gyms in and around NY. And although there was no gym near my house, I figured I could always stay at her place when I needed to work out. It was also a great excuse to see her without her feeling like I was making a booty call.

Like I would ever do that.

Believing that I needed help in my war against the insidious evil of my sloth-like behavior, I decided to pay one of their ‘Fitness Trainers’ to torture me with daily workout routines that involved much sweat and pain on my part and lots of helpful suggestions on his part. I would meet with my Fitness Trainer, who I liked to call Lord Beelzebub, every other day at the gym closest to my girlfriend’s place in the city. It was a good working relationship. I would sweat and moan and bitch and cry and generally feel like a wimpy piece of wet noodle while he took my money and did all he could to make sure I left the gym as a wimpy wet noodle of a man.

Sadist is too weak a word for him.

So far, things have been going well. My belly is getting smaller and I’ve stopped using Lord Beelzebub’s services because he seemed far too happy when lifting weights forced my body to make loud, embarrassing sounds. I’m talking about whimpering and sobbing for mercy.

Sicko’s.

The only problem I have with the gym is that I have to travel over an hour to get there every time I want to work out. It’s become a hassle and a chore but I’ve been going as much as possible because hey, at least I get some boo-tay from HoBiscuit my girlfriend afterwards.

At least, I used to until I wrote that last line.

Anywaste, to get back onto the topic of me being a clueless moron, yesterday HoBiscuit my girlfriend sent me an email wherein she asked me a very important question. She was wondering if I knew that there was a gym not ten minutes walk from my house and that it even had indoor basketball courts?

Say WHAT?

Why, no my sweet, lovable HoBiscuit girlfriend, I did not. I did not know this piece of important information for I am a clueless moron whose inability to notice the world around him has marked him as a social outcast and community pariah for all time. Thank you for once again pointing out something so blatantly obvious that I should simply hang my head in shame and wear a sign around my neck proclaiming to the world that I am mentally unfit to be trusted to blink without assistance.

Needless to say, I went over to the gym yesterday and it’s big, clean and not crowded so I think I’ve found a new workout home. I’m going tonight for a kickboxing class and if that goes ok I’ll have to find some way to thank HoBiscuit my girlfriend in an appropriate and gentlemanly fashion.

Can anyone say Boo-TAY?