The Insane, Part 2

Comrade X has had his share of strange encounters in his life, but to tell you all of them would take longer than the time he actually spent living them, so he'll stick with only the most recent. After the Raven episode, Comrade X was at the gym (Comrade X believes in physical fitness -- one must be ready for action when the Revolution begins!-- and in keeping an eye on the Bourgeois Enemy, and what better place to do so than that most obvious of Bourgeois gathering-places, the Palace of Narcissism, the gym?), getting in fighting shape and picking out threats, when he noticed a certain non-bourgeois implant sticking out like a sore ideology: a man, perhaps 40ish, maybe 50, with giant basketball shorts and some kind of heavy metal logo t-shirt, not running, but sort of dancing on a treadmill. He was performing some kind of kick-ball-change and then this weird sideways running that looked like he was attempting some version of The Grapevine, or perhaps a twisted Hurdy-Gurdy, and making bizarre noises that Comrade X can only with much generosity call singing, while pumping his arms straight up into the air in some kind of rock-concert motion, all the while staring at the elevated television set and NOT watching the precariousness of his situation vis-a-vis his feet, which the treadmill threatened to pull out from under him and send him crashing into the heart monitor (which he disdained to use). After gazing open-mouthed for some time at this specimen, Comrade X decided to read a magazine and neglect his watchfulness for fear of not being able to take watching this person without making some inappropriate comment, and, still fresh from the encounter with Raven, wanted no more to do with crazy people.

Well, of course this plan went about as well as any of Comrade X's plans, and the next thing I know I'm in the locker room getting undressed for the shower and I look up and who do I see at the end of the bank of lockers? That's right: crazy dancing fat guy (oh, I forgot to mention that he was fat and his treadmill was set at a speed just under the normal pace for walking, yet he still managed to be sweating profusely). Staring at me. Mouth gaping, eyes unfocused, and so I looked down and kept getting undressed when suddenly I was overwhelmed by the smell of beer (the guy was shitfaced! That explained a lot), and, looking up (and trying not to vomit), I notice he's standing right next to me (with no one else in sight), staring at me and saying, "You know, I try to get a body like that, but I just can't, man, like, I want that physique [he was mumbling but I was sure he said "physique," which surprised me], you know, I want a body like yours, but I just can't, I try and I try and ... "

At this point Comrade X had removed his shorts in an effort to speed his way to the shower when he noticed the drunken googly-eyed greasy-pony-tailed crazy dancing singing arm-pumping fool's gaze drop to Comrade X's penis, whereupon the reeking insane hippie nutcase (and what the hell was this guy doing with a gym membership anyway? He looked one step below homeless) said, "I mean, I'm not a homosexual, you know, but I really want ... " Not caring what he wanted, Comrade X did the only thing he could think to do: he answered him with some sage advice:

"LIFT MORE! LIFT HEAVIER!"

Now, I thought that might be sound weight-lifting advice, and the conversation could end (especially as I practically screamed it in his face), when he returned to his lament. "Aww, I can't get a body like that, I just can't, I ..."

"ALWAYS MORE! ALWAYS HEAVIER!"
"Aww, I don't ... "
"GET A SPOTTER!"
"Yeah, like THAT'S gonna happen ..."
"More more more, always heavier, always more," I said, walking away now, seeing that this was not going to end well.
"Yeah, right, like ... "
And then, as I turned the corner with a final screamed "MORE! HEAVIER!", which caught the attention of the men on the other side of my bank of lockers, I took my shower. Now, as I was in the shower, I realized that his statements were actually ambiguous: did he mean he wanted a body like that himself, or he wanted a guy with a body like that for some devious drunken sexual purpose? Was I just hit on, sort of? Musing about this, I walked back to the lockers, knowing that he'd still be there and trying to figure out a strategy. If I kept yelling "HARDER!" at him it might be counter-productive; if I ignored him it might seem like I'm playing hard to get. What to do? Luckily, there were now other people in the row, so when I went to my locker he was just sitting there, his gut flopping over the tops of his thighs, with not one, but THREE submarine sandwiches wrapped in plastic next to him on the bench! No fucking wonder he can't get a "body like that" -- he comes to the gym drunk, gets on a treadmill going perhaps 3.2 miles per hour for maybe ten minutes, then stumbles into the locker room to eat THREE TIMES the normal food intake of a grown man?

He sat looking despondently into his open locker as I dressed and left.

The fucking revolution better start soon because I can't take much more of this ...