OUR WORLD:

Now that daylight savings time has arrived (or left? What’s the difference?) I have started my official countdown to Spring activities!  ACTIVITIES!  Yes, it’s 31 degrees outside today, but it’s sunny and it’s March 13 and GODDAMNIT I CAN’T TAKE THE WINTER ANYMORE!!!  People who live in cold weather cities turn into fatter, sadder, angrier versions of themselves from November through whenever it’s 55+ degrees for three days in a row.  This past February, I got so fed up with everything that I bit my steering wheel. And when I say “bit”, I mean I kinda screamed and definitely chomped down on it.  You could see teeth marks in my steering wheel for a few hours.  There’s bitter cold, shoveling, salt stains on everything, darkness, you have to put those fuckin booties on your dog every time you go outside, and wear that jacket that makes you look puffy AND I’M BITING MY STEERING WHEEL!!!! That’s what a Chicago winter is like; you bite your steering wheel.

So, once March hits, you start thinking about the activities you’re going to get to do that will signify making it through the wars of winter.  It’s a time of hope, that lasts until…god, we’re gonna have another snowstorm I know it…

Drinking a beer outside:  You’re toasting right in the face of winter once you’re able to do this.  “Hey Winter, have fun with the dumb penguins in Antarctica!”  It’ll probably still be a little chilly when you have your first outside beer of the season, but you’ll pretend that you’re not shivering and don’t need a jacket.  (I said I’m done with jackets!)  It will always be my favorite Chicago sight to walk around the blocks of bars in mid-March when it’s 53 degrees and EVERYBODY is sitting outside pretending they’re not cold.  It’s such a meatball/hardo-move, but the entire city takes part in it.  We are all meatballs.

Pretending you’re excited at a Cubs game before mid-May:  Going to Wrigley is straight fantastic, but April/Early-May games are BRUTAL and you’ll never admit that to your friends.  Every year, you’ll get invited to a game where the weather won’t be great, and you’ll have to fake that you’re blown-away-excited about going.  While there, however, all you’re thinking is “Jesus baseball is slow, this beer stinks and I. AM. FREEZING!” Then you’ll smile at your friends and talk about how glad you are that “baseball is back!”

Buying a new pair of shoes that look AWESOME only when wearing shorts:  I bought a pair of light tan leather slipper shoes (don’t know what those are called) that had little pineapple-bombs on them last year.  It was a pretty hipster purchase for me, but I was blinded by my early-March excitement and convinced myself that, with shorts, I’d look like one sexy papa in ’em.  The next 40 days of wearing mostly pants (and not the pineapple-bomb shoes because they look no bueno with pants) definitely cooled my excitement about these shoes, but the act of buying them is a tradition that is not worth abandoning.  This year, I’m thinking, wait for it, about boat shoes.  It’s been a while since I rocked the boat shoes and shorts look, but I’m thinking since my wife is southern and Jimmy Good Times LIVES for the summer months, that boat shoes are a due for a Jimmy comeback.  (I will be nervous about what people at work say about me wearing boat shoes, but I’m a brave boy.  Dad? YOUR SON IS A BRAVE LITTLE BOY!)

I’m aware that full-on warm weather is a ways out, but just shut up and let me dream for once in my miserable life.  This is the time of the year for hope.  I hope that I’m going to gamble myself into millions during March Madness.  I hope that I get to drink a beer outside in the next 2 weeks.  I hope that I don’t have to shovel my car out of a parking spot and then get in my car only to get cut off by a guy wearing a skull cap before 7:45 AM.  I hope I don’t have to bite my steering wheel again.

MY WORLD:

There are people that go to the gym, that have no right to be there and I feel it is my duty to stand up and say “GET OUT!”  While the majority of my time inside the greasy purple walls of Planet Fitness is spent trying to not look at the clock, the remaining time is spent convincing myself not to say anything to the mutant next to me.  It’s rush hour traffic with body odor and no laws, I’m amazed there hasn’t been a real life “The Purge: Planet Fitness”.  (No, I have not seen any of “The Purge” movies because they’re scary and “Unsolved Mysteries” gave me nightmares as a kid.)

Now, I am aware that some people get nervous about going to the gym.  I have friends like this (I call them “Slobs”).  I think I understand the fear of being a gym beginner.  Nervous about not knowing what to do, not knowing how machines work, being judged for getting gassed after 4 minutes.  I get it.  I feel like that when I go to the weights section now, after not lifting for like 5 years.  (Do what I do when you get gassed super quick; grimace and grab your arm.  Try “working it out” by stretching your arm and then shake your head all disappointed like “damn, when will these war injuries heal?!?”  Boom, sympathetic character.)  

I’m not talking to my “Slobbo” friends (it’s making me laugh, but I don’t mean it).  I don’t want to ban beginners.  I simply want to institute some rules for the roads.  This is what I propose:

1)  If you are “the smelly guy/girl” who can’t seem to shake B.O., then you either have to wrap your pits with industrial saran wrap, or wear a MINIMUM of 6 thick sweatshirts to hide the stink.  Look, thankfully I have not been cursed with chronic B.O. and while I’m sympathetic to those who have been, there MUST be more awareness.  When I’m on the treadmill and Shteve (not “Steve,” his name is “Shteve”), the data miner/amateur gamer, gets on the one next to me with his nerd B.O. I have to stop myself EVERY TIME from stopping my treadmill just to glare at him while shaking my head.  (Instead, I’ll normally do cool passive aggressive things like audibly sighing or coughing.)  I don’t know if B.O. is like a medical issue without a cure (probably? right?) but you can’t dare people to offend you by pretending it’s not there.  (Did you say I stink?  YOU’RE A STINKIST!)  Listen, I get some gnarly looking rashes on the backs of my knees sometimes, and you know what I do?  I WRAP THEM UP BECAUSE I AM SELF-CONSCIOUS AND DO NOT WISH TO SUBJECT THE PUBLIC TO THIS HORRIFIC SIGHT!  In short, if you stink, get out.

2)  When getting dressed in the locker room, pants go on as soon as humanely possible.  What childhood trauma happened to these people who put their shirts on first?  If you put your shirt on first when getting dressed, your credit score should be docked 800 points because it’s time you leave this society.  Now, I don’t know about ladies locker rooms (because I don’t go in there, but I do have certain dreams about it and I do not wish to hear about your stories that do not align EXACTLY with my dreams.  Thanks for understanding,) BUT, men’s locker rooms in gyms that have men over the age of 50 are an absolute horror show.  I think something snaps with guys who have been married for 20+ years where the only way they can remind themselves that their balls actually do exist is by parading around their gym’s locker room in a shirt and no pants.  “Look everyone!  My testicles ARE here!  All of these mirrors and your horrified faces are proof!”

Ladies, this is a common thing in Men’s locker rooms.  An older dude will shower, come out of the shower and put the towel around his shoulders as he SLOWLY saunters his fat ass back to his locker.  Once there, he’ll sit down (BARE-ASS!) on the bench in front of the lockers for a not-so-quick breather.  Men like me (sane people) gasp at each other, in a whispered panic, to remind each other that this is not okay.  Old Balls McGee then, FINALLY, begins to get dressed only to disappoint EVERYONE IN THE HISTORY OF SOCIETY when he puts a shirt on and hits pause on the dressing process.  (Wait? You’re done?  NO!!! SIR!!! THE PANTS!!! THE PANTS!!!)  He’ll then take a lap around the locker room to make us all feel bad for his wife before using the hair dryer on the 8 hairs still in his dome…AND THEN HE USES THE SAME HAIR DRYER ON HIS BALLS IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR!

If the FBI hasn’t already begun forming a task force, I have lost faith in my government.

3)  If you are walking on a treadmill next to your companion and carrying on a conversation the entire time, you might as well be at home.  I’m not saying you can’t talk to someone, but the gym is a stop-and-chat-zone ONLY!  When I can’t fully hear my Bill Simmons Podcast because you’re too busy recounting why your boss sucks to your friend for 45 minutes, I should be allowed to chop both your heads off with an axe (I have thought of the appropriate punishment for this offense for years, and there’s no way around it, the loppin’ off the head with an axe move makes the most sense.)  Listen, I’m not a fan of treadmill walkers to begin with, but if you’re able to carry on a full conversation throughout a “workout”…YOU’RE NOT WORKING OUT!  You’re supposed to be panting, or at least focusing on how to breathe normally so you don’t pass out, fall down and get shot back into the wall by the belt of your treadmill.  (One time, I closed my eyes while on a treadmill, took a wrong step and got catapulted into the wall behind me by the treadmill.  Unrelated, I did not get laid in High School.)  

What these walker talkers must understand is that everyone else in the gym is trying to distract themselves from the fact that they are in the gym.  That’s why there are televisions and podcasts and music.  It allows you to zone out, and forget that you’re doing something that’s not that fun.  However, once that zone-out-zone is penetrated by your shrill voice and dull stories, the illusion disappears and we remember that we’re in fucking Planet Fitness and not eating Salt & Vinegar chips while watching Sportscenter.  The way you would never wake a sleepwalker, do not disrupt the workout zone-out.

That’s it, guys.  Those are the 3 main rules:  No stink, no balls, no talk.  There are many other things at the gym that annoy the shit out of me, but I will keep those to myself like a proper Irish-Catholic rage bottler that I am.  If you are a gym newbie and you follow these rules…I don’t know, I’ll probably find something else you there that’ll annoy me because I LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT PEOPLE I WILL PROBABLY NEVER GET TO KNOW!

LETS LIKE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Almost warm = spring = baseball = fathers and sons making grown men strangers cry with sweet moments like this

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

MY BOVADA PICK OF THE DAY THAT I AM GENUINELY CONFIDENT IN BECAUSE I DESERVE GOOD THINGS TO HAPPEN TO ME AFTER GETTING REAR-ENDED BY A GUY WITHOUT A LICENSE: 

UCLA’s play-in game is tonight against St. Bonaventure and I’m going to bet on UCLA (-3.5) because I went there and I have never seen St. Bonaventure play basketball.  Do I think UCLA is any good this year? Not really.  BUT! When you’re dumb and don’t know anything about one of the teams playing, but you like to gamble, you put money on the team you want to root for.  Classic Jimmy move here.

(My account currently at $59.11)

K bye.