This is a guest post from my friend Jared, who also sees some weird ass shit in his gym. This story easily equals the strangest character I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen a platoon of gym weirdos. You simply can’t make this shit up.
Yes that says “sander”, yes I mean the power tool, I’ll get there, but first let me set the scene.
This Gym Character was a few years back at a health club. I’d call it a mid-to-upper tier club. It was certainly nicer than a chain (24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, etc.), but not ultra-high-end (Equinox). I try my best to avoid crowds at the gym, and I’m afforded a pretty flexible schedule. So at that time I was going to the gym around 9am each morning. This was a very quiet time, but also the time when the average-age creeped into the late 60s. Anyone who has gone to a gym mid-week at 9am knows exactly what I’m talking about. If you don’t, The Oatmeal really did summarize it best with this comic.
That was my locker room life for around a year. I’d walk in with my eyes glued to the floor tiles in front of me and put my stuff in the locker. I never ever looked more than two feet in front of me, and I certainly never looked over about knee height.
Sand me baby
One fateful day, all of this changed. My innocence was taken from me by something as functional as an orbit sander. Now at the time, I didn’t know what the sound was that broke the silence in the locker room that morning. Why would I be hearing a sander? That can’t possibly be the noise I thought. I thought wrong.
A loud power tool sound startled me as I was putting my bag in my locker. I was curious, just innocently thinking the maintenance guy was fixing something, The maintenance guy was a nice guy and the only other person at the gym besides me at that hour who wasn’t retired, so I’d usually shoot the shit with him if I saw him. I wandered towards the noise just to say hi and see what he was fixing.
I walked with purpose from the locker area to the separate sink area, slightly rounding the corner towards the noise. There, I saw HIM. I saw HIM with the sander. He was not the maintenance guy. He was not clothed for work. He was not clothed at all. He was not standing on two feet even, but rather had one foot up on the counter. That fateful power tool I heard was a makita orbit sander.
Let’s stop right now and address the obvious question of “Why the fuck do you know what brand it was? Why were you looking so close bro?” First, fuck off, I know my power tools and all brands have distinct colors. Second, fuck off, what I saw scarred me for life, I didn’t enjoy it at all.
Back to it. This naked, sprawled man had a sander, without sandpaper (I assume at least), between his under-ass cheek and hamstring using it as a deep-tissue massager. He was grinding the fuck out of his muscles utilizing every bit of that 3-amp / 12,000 OPM motor. Not only were the vibrations working wonders for his upper hamstrings, but they also set in motion what I can only deduce was the harmonic frequency of his dangling, old-man fun-sack. Being in that gym, I accidentally saw my share of retired junk (see Oatmeal image above), but never did I imagine the full potential of disgust until this moment right here. It was like I was living a scene from Waiting that was only in the director’s cut extras because they had to cut it to make an R-rating.
So there I was, standing after committing to seeing the source of the noise, with no real purpose in the sink area. I was momentarily trapped, staring at Captain Sack Powertool and no good exit strategy. I didn’t even try to play it cool, diverting to another sink to go wash my hands or something. I literally took three steps backwards back out of the room. The only good I think I could manage, was warning the next gentleman who also looked curious about the sound, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
In closing, maybe this story was too long (it definitely was) and maybe it seemed anti-climatic, yes? No, and this is why. Go use a sander right now if you own one… Pretty fucking loud right? Like crazy fucking loud? Yeah, now imagine hearing that in a goddamn locker room at 9am and not going to look at what it is. Now imagine finding yourself staring at the noise and seeing what appears to be a ballsack in an invisible paint-shaker. Yup.
Like this post? You’ll also enjoy more of my Favorite Gym Characters posts
Hire me for some graphic design work and I’ll photoshop a bonus pic of an orbital sander on your naked ass
