Herman Melville Is My Swim Buddy

"There she blows!--there she blows!! A hump like a snow hill! It is ______"

Pop quiz!

1) Does the preceding line end with:

a- Travis

b- Moby Dick

c-something more clever than either I or Herman Melville could come up with

2) Was this sentence uttered by:

a- The 110 lb lifeguard at my gym.

b- Captain Ahab

c- Both

Whew! That was a doozy of a quiz. As you may be able to gather from the questions I went swimming for my workout today. Included in this post is an artists caricature of me doing so. Swimming at my gym is an interesting proposition. Yes, swimming is the low impact workout of choice for the girthfull. The problem is my gym's pool is situated behind very large, very translucent windows right next to the front counter where every person checks in. If you work out at my gym you pass those windows. Be that as it may I swam, and in so doing felt like I belonged at Sea World. I kept an eye on the lifeguard because I thought at any moment he would don a wetsuit and attempt to get me to leap through hoops for mackerel.

Swimming is exhausting. I swam and swam and swam, eventually my strokes went from a semblance of good form to inept slapping at the water. Stick a harpoon in me; I am done. When you are tired after swimming you sit in the hot tub, right? Not today Moby! Just as I was about to climb out of the pool a couple decided to climb into the hot tub and grow somewhat amorous. The little devil on my shoulder told me to climb my fat butt into that hot tub and stare at the couple like a creeper (see accompanying picture of creepy guy) until they grew uncomfortable and left me in peace.

The angel on my shoulder told me to go sit in the sauna and leave the couple alone. Good storytelling dictates that I do the former, while in reality I did the latter. Oh well.

The sauna reminds me of the old Indian sweat lodge except with a lot less hallucinogens. You sit and you sweat, and as we all know the only thing more enjoyable the a mobile sweaty fat guy is a stationary one. After sweating it with some oldies for a while I took one last dive into the pool. Tired of feeling awkward I decided to turn the table on my fellow man.

"SCREEEEEEEE!!!" (direct quote) I screeched in best whale tone while breaching the water and entering back in with a thunderous clap. My best whale impersonation was pretty good. "SCREEEEEEE!!!!" I bellowed once more with yet another breech from the 4 ft. deep pool. Before I hit the water I noticed that the lifeguard and the other pool denizens were changing their looks of shock to that of laughter. I'm glad people still have a sense of humor. With a few more breeches and accompanying noises, I was spent and leaned against the wall of the pool pleased with my performance. The one guy in the pool who didn't think it was funny promptly pulled himself out of the pool and did literally 75 push-ups on the pool deck. While he took a shower I slashed his tires. (Only part of the story that is not true)

Gymdgement

You may be able to tell from some of what I'm willing to share about myself on the Internet that I am pretty difficult to embarrass. Rare is the situation where I am not able to freely crack jokes, be they weight related or otherwise. The one place that has made me truly uncomfortable after gaining so much weight is the gym.
It starts with the entrance and it's accompanying desk lackey waiting to scan your key-chain tag and allow you to enter. I consider it a good day when the scanner is pointed towards the door and nobody is at the desk, that's one gymdgemental stare that I can avert. Where to from here?
I stare at the shiny equipment and the gym denizens who all look like they could use a cheeseburger and think to myself 'Where is the wildebeest section?' My wife tells me that I need to do cardio first so I lumber upstairs to the long term torture devices. A sign on the wall reads "Please limit yourself to 30 minutes on the treadmill and elliptical machines if other members are waiting." Only because you asked so nice! Have you ever seen a 250+ lb guy try and jog on a treadmill? Have you ever heard one do it? I climb onto the machine of perpetual pain and embarrassment and press the buttons. Age: 27. Weight: 280lbs. A digital giggle is stifled by the treadmills readout screen. Workout type: Fat burn. I feel several pairs of eyes burn into me as I take the first steps. My mantra: Don't slip/fall of of the treadmill. Things are OK for the first minute, then the speed picks up. I'm listening to my music but a steady beat starts to rise in volume above it. Wondering what song the gym is playing over the speakers I take off my headset.
There is no song. The beat is me. My mass pounds mercilessly on the treadmill and the bass of the pounding echos throughout the gym. Curious weight lifters stop and look towards the treadmill to see what in the world is crashing to the ground repeatedly. All to aware of the disturbance I am causing I slow down my treadmill and climb off. Making sure to wipe off the prodigious amount of sweat I have left behind I seek my workout in other parts of the gym. My embarrassment follows. Stay tuned.

Fatiquette: Part Due

And now for the second installment of fatguy etiquette.
Digestion
Barking spiders, the old sneaky toad, the squeaky shoe, the vinyl chair, beef, toots, SBD, or farts, whatever you call them they are generally socially frowned upon. It does not matter if you are at a black tie event or if you are watching the fight in a crowded room with the guys, people notice flatulence and guess who the first suspect always is? The fatguy. Skinny people let one loose, and theirs are no less potent, but the world expects it from the fatguy first. The accusations will come either way so let's make them false. How?
WATCH WHAT YOU EAT. Can I make that more clear? If a certain food item like beans (allegedly good for your heart) makes you gassy avoid them. If you must partake of a food that causes you to be noxious, be prepared. I recommend GasX, Beano or a willingness to go outside frequently to handle some 'important phone calls'.
Finally: claim what is yours. If you do commit a foul and someone calls you on it, be it through stink eye (pun intended) or public outcry swallow your pride and claim it. Developing this gastrointestinal honesty amongst peers will force them to believe you when you deny it. Don't worry, you will not have to deal with this once you are skinny.
Pants
I like big butts (and I cannot lie) you other fatguys can't deny, when your wearing pants with a big fat waist, they fall all over the place, and you feel dumb. Newtons 10th law of physics dictate that E=Fg+(P-s)*G or embarrassment equals a fatguy plus pants without suspenders times gravity.
Here's an illustrative experiment. Supplies : One fully inflated basketball, one extra large rubber band. Method: Stretch rubber band around the basketball at a point that you could consider 2/5's the way "up" the ball. Observe results. What will happen is that the rubber band will slide off of the rounded bottom of the ball.
When a man gains weight they lose many things. Self esteem, endurance, strength, and a definable butt. The deflated tire that sits around the midsection removes any definition from where the back begins and the butt ends. This makes pants almost impossible to keep up without suspenders or a Burmese python for a belt. Solution: Lose weight, and focus on your legs. When guys work out we focus on our arms, everyone wants to sell tickets to their gun show. Focus more on your legs, core and butt. When you burn off your fat and define your body's shape again you can then focus on the cannons. Gravity is not your friend people, but your body can help if it is in the right shape. I'm trying to get mine there, I'm tired of looking like a fool with my pants on the ground.

Fatiquette: Part One.

My wife asked me in as gentle a way as possible "When you get skinny are going to stop being gross?"
This is the inspiration for today's entry. When I was a skinny guy I was fixated on every social indiscretion in a desperate attempt to be cool. As I became more and more weight endowed I focused less and less on those indiscretions. After all, I am a fatguy and as such it is my duty, nay, calling to be a source of humor in my sociotal circles. Because of this people expect the unexpected when fatguys like myself are around, and while my mind tries and tries (for my wife's sake) to be well refined, my body is an unstoppable force of yuck. So today I address a couple of those special areas.
Eating
Everything is a competition. Eating is not immune to this philosophy. The table has become the new battlefield of choice for men of all kind. Who can eat the most? Who can eat the fastest? Who can eat the grossest/spiciest/coldest/hottest/stinkiest/most toxic thing without puking/puking/getting a brain freeze/puking or puking? (Answer: Me.) From sliders (of the White Castle variety) to sliders (of the oyster variety), and hot dogs (World Champion eater Kobiashi's food of choice) to hot cats (we're looking at you Asia!) men all over the world engage in the gridiron of gluttony.
The rule of thumb for eating: If you are wondering 'Is this an appropriate activity for the dinner table' the answer is no. If you are wondering 'Will eating something this way gross out everyone else at the table?' the answer is yes. An all you can eat buffet is not a challenge from the restaurant owner, so don't make it a personal mission to "Get your money's worth". Ten dollars in fried zucchini is not good for anyone, and that brings me to my next point.
Digestion I
Digestion is the most polite word I could come up with for what I'm about to address. For the faint of heart or stomach you may want to end your reading of today's post here. Like the places marked Unknown on Pre-Columbian maps , Here be Dragons. You have been warned.
Many men pride themselves on having a "cast iron stomach". Treating your stomach like it is made of cast iron often leads to having a teflon-coated digestive tract.
Sure, enjoy your 3 lb burger (I know I have!). Top it off with some chili-cheese fries and wash it all down with a milk shake. Slice of pizza for dessert? Why not the whole pie?! After a sitting like that one can put money on the fact that those food items will fly through you faster than an Olympian bobsled with greased rails (Cool Runnings!!)
This is especially bad when you are visiting someones home. Polls that I have made up clearly show that 90% of people would rather find that a family of plague ridden rats have set up shop in their refrigerator than let an overweight man use their bathroom.
There is much more to talk about. The next post (Fatiquette: Part Due) will address more on Digestion as well as the enigma that pants present to round shaped people.