I blame my aunt Shawna. She has made me so paranoid about my health by posting a PSA on her Facebook that might as well had said, “Jacob Broderick, you are going to die from malignant melanoma. Sucks that you don’t have health insurance, doesn’t it?” Why do I feel so paranoid about getting malignant melanoma? Well, the PSA listed several things that increase your chances of developing the cancer: have more than fifty moles? Cancer! Been severely sunburned, ever? Cancer! Have you ever gone outside? Cancer!
I have fifty moles on my left leg, let alone my whole body; I usually lose count at about one hundred and forty. And living in California, and being pale, I get burned every time I step out into the sun. So if I calculate it out correctly, my chances of developing skin cancer are at about two hundred and forty percent. So the only thing that will really battle my anxiety is working out. That or eating, but the latter I have done the past three months and have started to work my way back to being the fat sibling.
So I have started to regularly attend the gym to get my Zumba on three times a week. The problem is, there are so many people that attend the classes that they have to give out tickets to let you in. If you arrive thirty minutes early for the class, you are assured to have a ticket number higher than 60, which banishes you to the very far back of the classroom, or behind one of the gigantic mirrored pillars in the middle of the room. I can’t be pushed to the back of the class, because then how would people admire my dancing? And so I come to class nearly an hour early, which gets me somewhere between ticket 30 and 40.
The most embarrassing part is asking for a Zumba ticket, because the front attendants at the gym look at me like I am confused or something. Is he serious about a Zumba ticket? Maybe if I laugh, he’ll laugh and go away… they laugh, I repeat myself, and they give me a resounding, “Yeah! Work it out, big guy!”
So with my free hour of gym time I usually wander around the cardio room and try to look like I am working out. At first, I started using the elliptical. The problem here is that the elliptical doesn’t allow me to have a good stride with my run, and it makes me look like I am trotting along, gaily through the air. I feel as if I should hold a basket of posies while I am on the elliptical, like that would make me seem more in place.
After I swore off that machine, I decided to start using the stair climber, but yet again, my size has worked against me. This time, it would be my big clodhoppers that I call my feet; they don’t fit on the steps. Three quarters or a half a foot, I could do, but I am essentially using my toes to stay aloft on the machine, which brings me back, looking like a pansy, skipping up an infinite flight of stairs. And from this, I generate an infinite amount of stares that make me feel a little bit too self-conscious.
I’ve found that my best option comes in the form of the rowing machine. Hardly anyone notices them because they are pushed to the very back of the gym, the outcasts of the machines. So I like to spend a little bit of time, rowing in place while listening to an audio book. But after constant rowing for ten minutes, my muscles start to scream, and I end up just pushing myself forward an back on the seat, accomplishing little to know physical activity.
The only other machine that I really use would be the stationary bike, which is conveniently placed right in front of the televisions. I usually end up in front of the ESPN television, which makes me look and feel more masculine, not that I am actually paying attention the game, but nobody has to know that.
From my biking perch, I start to make judgements about the people around me, mostly the people working with weights. Truly, I wish that I could lift weights, but because I am embarrassingly weak, I would never use a weight machine in front of another human being. Somehow, benching ten pounds is worse than not being able to bench at all. Because that is what gyms are about: extremes. Either you are so incredibly muscled that you can lift a car with ease, or you are a weak little fatty who works out, but will never really accomplish anything.
Even if I could lift more than ten pounds, I don’t really know how to use any of the machines. Sure, I could hop on and start pushing and pulling things until they move, but I am certain that every gym goer there would look at me and pass judgements, just like how I do to the people I watch.
I find myself staring over at the free weights, and start to wonder, I wonder if there is a sure fire way to look at somebody an know they are on steroids? I know that if I had to examine them naked, I could probably figure out who was a steroid user and who was just magnificently buff, but from a distance, I can only assume that most are juicers. The ones that I really target are the men with gigantic chests but tiny little legs. Because they look freakish and disproportionate, they must be using steroids.
I would probably use steroids if I actually had enough drive to actually lift weights. Mostly because I have never really had a great body. I mean, every once and a while, I get really skinny and you can see some ribs, but that usually only happens after I have the flu and haven’t kept any fluids down for a week. I would love to have some sort of definition in my shape, a bicep here, an oblique there, but by myself, I know I will never achieve that kind of figure.
I consider myself somewhat lucky. While being fat has left me with a hooded belly button and stretch marks, I was also blessed with skin that stretched where my manboobs once resided, which now give the illusion that I have the inkling of pecs. I know they aren’t real, but women hardly have real breasts anymore, why can’t I have pecs made from my own sagging skin? It sounds disgusting in theory, but in real life, you’d never really know-- unless, that is, somebody touches them or asks me to lift something heavy.
Instead of steroids, I could cut out all the hard work and heavy lifting, and go in for plastic surgery. My list of operations I would like to get is staggering: butt implants, botox injections, ear pinning, belly button augmentation, liposculpture, tummy tuck, pec implants, veneers, etc. And that is why I can’t ever go in for surgery; I would never come out. Which is frightening to think that if I get just one surgery, I could become addicted and pop out looking like Dolly Parton.
I have fifty moles on my left leg, let alone my whole body; I usually lose count at about one hundred and forty. And living in California, and being pale, I get burned every time I step out into the sun. So if I calculate it out correctly, my chances of developing skin cancer are at about two hundred and forty percent. So the only thing that will really battle my anxiety is working out. That or eating, but the latter I have done the past three months and have started to work my way back to being the fat sibling.
So I have started to regularly attend the gym to get my Zumba on three times a week. The problem is, there are so many people that attend the classes that they have to give out tickets to let you in. If you arrive thirty minutes early for the class, you are assured to have a ticket number higher than 60, which banishes you to the very far back of the classroom, or behind one of the gigantic mirrored pillars in the middle of the room. I can’t be pushed to the back of the class, because then how would people admire my dancing? And so I come to class nearly an hour early, which gets me somewhere between ticket 30 and 40.
The most embarrassing part is asking for a Zumba ticket, because the front attendants at the gym look at me like I am confused or something. Is he serious about a Zumba ticket? Maybe if I laugh, he’ll laugh and go away… they laugh, I repeat myself, and they give me a resounding, “Yeah! Work it out, big guy!”
So with my free hour of gym time I usually wander around the cardio room and try to look like I am working out. At first, I started using the elliptical. The problem here is that the elliptical doesn’t allow me to have a good stride with my run, and it makes me look like I am trotting along, gaily through the air. I feel as if I should hold a basket of posies while I am on the elliptical, like that would make me seem more in place.
After I swore off that machine, I decided to start using the stair climber, but yet again, my size has worked against me. This time, it would be my big clodhoppers that I call my feet; they don’t fit on the steps. Three quarters or a half a foot, I could do, but I am essentially using my toes to stay aloft on the machine, which brings me back, looking like a pansy, skipping up an infinite flight of stairs. And from this, I generate an infinite amount of stares that make me feel a little bit too self-conscious.
I’ve found that my best option comes in the form of the rowing machine. Hardly anyone notices them because they are pushed to the very back of the gym, the outcasts of the machines. So I like to spend a little bit of time, rowing in place while listening to an audio book. But after constant rowing for ten minutes, my muscles start to scream, and I end up just pushing myself forward an back on the seat, accomplishing little to know physical activity.
The only other machine that I really use would be the stationary bike, which is conveniently placed right in front of the televisions. I usually end up in front of the ESPN television, which makes me look and feel more masculine, not that I am actually paying attention the game, but nobody has to know that.
From my biking perch, I start to make judgements about the people around me, mostly the people working with weights. Truly, I wish that I could lift weights, but because I am embarrassingly weak, I would never use a weight machine in front of another human being. Somehow, benching ten pounds is worse than not being able to bench at all. Because that is what gyms are about: extremes. Either you are so incredibly muscled that you can lift a car with ease, or you are a weak little fatty who works out, but will never really accomplish anything.
Even if I could lift more than ten pounds, I don’t really know how to use any of the machines. Sure, I could hop on and start pushing and pulling things until they move, but I am certain that every gym goer there would look at me and pass judgements, just like how I do to the people I watch.
I find myself staring over at the free weights, and start to wonder, I wonder if there is a sure fire way to look at somebody an know they are on steroids? I know that if I had to examine them naked, I could probably figure out who was a steroid user and who was just magnificently buff, but from a distance, I can only assume that most are juicers. The ones that I really target are the men with gigantic chests but tiny little legs. Because they look freakish and disproportionate, they must be using steroids.
I would probably use steroids if I actually had enough drive to actually lift weights. Mostly because I have never really had a great body. I mean, every once and a while, I get really skinny and you can see some ribs, but that usually only happens after I have the flu and haven’t kept any fluids down for a week. I would love to have some sort of definition in my shape, a bicep here, an oblique there, but by myself, I know I will never achieve that kind of figure.
I consider myself somewhat lucky. While being fat has left me with a hooded belly button and stretch marks, I was also blessed with skin that stretched where my manboobs once resided, which now give the illusion that I have the inkling of pecs. I know they aren’t real, but women hardly have real breasts anymore, why can’t I have pecs made from my own sagging skin? It sounds disgusting in theory, but in real life, you’d never really know-- unless, that is, somebody touches them or asks me to lift something heavy.
Instead of steroids, I could cut out all the hard work and heavy lifting, and go in for plastic surgery. My list of operations I would like to get is staggering: butt implants, botox injections, ear pinning, belly button augmentation, liposculpture, tummy tuck, pec implants, veneers, etc. And that is why I can’t ever go in for surgery; I would never come out. Which is frightening to think that if I get just one surgery, I could become addicted and pop out looking like Dolly Parton.
