Weight

 The gym.
Its one of those places that has its own rules, its own culture.
After New Year's Day gyms are crowded.
For two weeks.
I belonged to a gym once, wow. Read that again.
I belonged.
Interesting thought that.
To rephrase.
I once paid a nominal fee to use equipment that I felt I needed to improve my physical appearance and strength in ways that I felt were unavailable to me anywhere else.
They also had a sauna.
I never spoke to anyone. I just played on the machines and became a student of the science of Weight Lifting.
To say, I lifted up heavy things and put them down again.
I watched people.
I saw things I never in my wildest dreams, or nightmares, thought that I would see.
Three naked female instructors leaving the Sauna early one morning.
A treadmill that ate a walk-man. (how dated)
Pants falling off a girl on an elliptical machine.  (http://colneyhatch.blogspot.com/2012/02/pants.html)
A hirsute naked man doing yogic stretches in the dance room.
Three nipples on a man in the coed hot tub.
A very very heavy man wedge himself inside the shower, who had to be cut out.
So many things. SO many shapes. Big people and little humans. The people that changed shape. Big to little and back again. Skinny to Muscle and more muscle and acne.
I started to notice things.
Over time.
People who did the exact same thing every day.
Every.
Single.
Day.
They stayed exactly the same.
I don't know what their lives outside of the gym were like.
But in the gym.
They stayed the same.
Wait.
Some of the women would get flotation devices implanted.
Some of the men would get balder.
Overall body shapes, of the patterned people.
Stayed the same.
I still go to the Gym.
Still see things that stretch my brain.
Watching the people.
The humans.
Its a microcosm.
Everything is really. If you experience it deeply enough.
I learn a lot.
Doing the same thing, gets the same results.
Same.
We all pick up heavy things from time to time.
The trick, is remembering that we can put them down.

Retold

This story was told to me tonight.

It made me smile.

“Where did you Get those Boots? I really like them”

“Weeeelllllll,

I was on my way from one little southern hothouse to another, the truck was running good and I was feeling great. The South was feeling mighty fine just then. I realized that I needed to stop, drop some water off, and pick up some water for me, and some Gas for the truck .It was a needful  situation and one in which I approved. The convenience store that I pulled in to seemed to be  just the spot, I walked in to pay for my gas and realized two things. One, it was a mite bigger on the inside than the out, 2, it was not just a convenience store, it was a CASINO/convenience store!

I walked right on over to the fun part of the store knowing that may truck was parked just in front. Safe as could be.

 I guess.

I stuck 5 dollars in a spinning wheel poker machine, placed the max bet and spun that little bandits arm.

Straight flush.

The lights started to flashing and the whistles and bells to a ringing. Little lady ran right out of the back room, unplugged the machine and opened a door to reveal its guts. She pulled a little printed ticket out from its innards and I walked up to the payout and then out the door.

750.00 dollars richer than when I had a walked in.

Hopped in my truck and started off down the road.

15 miles later I remembered that I had forgotten water, gas and pissing.

Damn.

So I took the very next exit and pulled into the first place I figured would have a usable toilet.

It was Carlos’s Boot Hacienda, which makes no damn sense in Louisiana but the bathroom seemed fit.

I decided while I was there to treat myself to a new pair of boots, figured a hundred dollars ought to do the trick.

Then I saw these.

I had to have them and they was only ½ of the money the CASINO had just givin me.

Sold.

Then I got emptied out, filled up the truck and me and sashayed right on out of there.

That was, at least my intent.

I remembered that I was heading to my sister’s house to cook some food and light some fireworks with her children for the fourth of July.

So I pulled into the fireworks store and unloaded my over-full wallet on them for half my winnings worth of fireworks.

Watching those kids, light them fireworks, running around with the lit punks trailing embers and smoke with my new boots on the table in front of me.

Best damn fourth of my whole life.

I guess.