You're Always the Last to Know

I started this post in a completely different direction. It was going to be about how I generally manage to keep my weirdness pretty well under wraps, but that it sometimes sneaks out at odd, no pun intended, times.

There's a problem with that though. See, I think I'm 100% wrong. Not the "I'm an odd duck" part, that's definitely true. I really don't think I keep it any where nearly as subdued as I thought.

I think what I really manage to do is to make my weirdness more amusing than creepy. So, it looks like those times I was going to use to illustrate my odd-duckiness getting out, was really just a list of times that it got out without a filter.

A Very Special Episode of Weary Drum

I was watching Finding Nemo with Daughter today and I remembered something from when I was a kid. This was remarkable in two ways:

1. I hardly ever remember anything from my childhood. I really can only remember a handful of stuff before I was 17.

2. Pretty much anything I actually do remember is the kind of thing that, while I can make jokes about it, most people find pretty horrifying. This memory was Beaver Cleaver compared to everything else.

So, here's the actual memory. In the movie, two bully fish had stolen a young sea snail's shell and were playing keep away with it. Basically throwing it back and forth to each other over the head of the snail. Two kids did that to me one day.

Now before I get into details, lets do a little background on the situation. You're thinking, "Poor Mikey being bullied all through his young life." Well, not so much. I got some shit of course, but I was always tall for my age and I never really stayed in any one place long enough for the kids to work up any kind of bullying project-plan. So I didn't really have a big issue with that. Also, these kids were smaller than me...and I'm fairly sure they were younger. I'm positive I was smarter.

Anyway, they'd kind of randomly been pestering me. I'm fuzzy on details but I remember waiting in one line while they were waiting in another. One of them walked over behind me and pushed me, then ran laughing back to his place in line 20ft away. It took me a second to figure this out. Not the mystery of being shoved and oh the cruelty of man and all that fun stuff, but why the little dumbass decided to piss off someone bigger than him, then run away only to stop 20 damn feet away. Once I was able to assimilate the stupidity, I walked over to his line, smacked him in the head a couple times and walked back. Honestly, what the hell was he even thinking?

I also can't remember why they even want to to start up with me in the first place. I've never been the kind of person to pick on people and I can't remember pretty much anything about these guys. I'm really at a loss for their motivation, but their astonishing lack of skill and judgment is kind of funny in spite of that.

Ok, so back to the first memory. I was playing basketball I guess, or at least I had a basketball and somehow one of them got it. They started doing the keep away thing. After a couple half-hearted attempts to get the ball I ran at the guy holding the ball. He, all smiles, threw the ball over my head to his friend. His smile broke when he figured out that I wasn't going to change direction. I grabbed him before he had a chance to get away, pushed him into a fence and smacked him around. His friend ran away and dropped the ball. I'm not sure how they saw that little adventure ending, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I guess they weren't really thinking that far ahead anyway.

I'm proud of that moment. Not because I smacked a kid or overcame some personal demons, but because I found what is probably the optimal solution to the 'keep-away' gambit.

Also, before anyone gets too upset about the graphic violence contained herein, please note that when I say 'smacking around' I mean that. These kids were smaller than me and just little idiots. I wasn't even using closed-fists. It was more of a physical form of punctuation on the backs of their heads.

How you doing?

I don't think women appreciate how hard it is not to be 'the creepy guy' at the gym. The biggest problem is that there is a large enough number of creepy guys out there to safely assume that any male who glances at, talks to, or comes within 15ft of anything resembling an attractive woman, is in fact, a creep.

I've become infinitely more comfortable around women since being married. See, pre-marriage I figure there was maybe a 1 in 10,000 chance that a woman would actually want to sleep with me. Now, for the woman out there, you're thinking, "Well, if the chance is so small, couldn't you just forget about it and relax?" But the men are more familiar with this kind of algebra and realize that the 1 in 10,000 chance doesn't come along very often, which means you better not screw it up. Which means pressure. Which means awkwardness. Which means that your 1 in 10,000 chance for sex just walked out the door laughing at you... again. Post-marriage the world is completely different. I'm off the table. I'm locked up in the Disney vault along with 101 Dalmations. Now there's a 0 in 10,000 chance. So, since there isn't even the remotest possibility of sex with someone non-wife, I'm relaxed.

Not at the gym though.

Things are a little different there, especially in the pool. You've got women in necessarily tight and skimpy outfits, and they're wet. It's basically a big creep magnet. Also, people just do odd non-sexual things in the water anyway. Like the guy who decided to play-dead in the warm up pool by floating face down without moving for as long as he could hold his breath. Repeatedly...for around 15 minutes.

Anyway, I show up at the pool and there's only one free lane, right next to the only youngish woman there. Normally you have to go at least one lane away from her. Why? Because the creeps will pick the lane next to her no matter how many others are open. I get in the water as she starts a kick-drill, and sweet zombie jesus she is fast. My kick is pure crap and she's moving faster than I can swim. It would be helpful to watch how she's doing it, but do I? No, because that's what the creeps would do.

I'm just getting back into swimming after a couple months of run/bike focus, so my stamina doesn't exist. I start with 50's (2 lengths), then 75's (3), then mix up 100's, 200's, etc. She's evidently doing the same because she'll sometimes take her rest on the near side and sometimes on the far side. I start my first 75, which will have me finish on the far side of the pool, as she's still in a cycle of resting on the near side. I pull up to the wall for my stop, and guess who's switched and has stopped on the far side now? Yeah. So can I, who have been resting on the near side this entire time stop there, just at the same time she did? Nope, because that's what the creeps would do. I had to finish out the 100.