Half Past Awesome

There are only so many heartbeats that each of us are assigned in this life; how we use them is completely and totally up to us. Whether we choose to waste them at a rapid pace by activities such as “exercise” or we choose to maximize our life time-schedule by sitting on our collective asses, it is a purely autonomous decision. At least, that is the theory put forth by a former co-worker, who described this life philosophy to me while consuming his daily dollar Whopper lunch. Amazing what we can learn in a firehouse.

I’ve had a torrid affair with the gym myself. In days past, it was a habit as a means of staving off the effects of aging, Midwestern cuisine and the maddening expansion of the waistline.  Then along came family and all the so-called needs they needed fulfilled. I’d go through jags where the gym was a middling priority, abandoned as soon as the Next Great Endeavor was attacked. And outside of the weekly hockey game and momentary fits of chasing the boys around the homestead, the affair waned while the pant size waxed.

In its latest manifestation, my relationship with the gym has been in dire need of a motivational factor. To most people this would involve getting hooked up with a great yoga-lates class and taking cues from all the fit and trim and beautiful people. Maybe this might involve getting some P-90X routine or perhaps a new Super Gazelle Strider Machine, complete with healthy fitness models telling you that, yes, you too can look like them in an incredibly short period of time.

This is not for me. These people, all ripped, cut and mad about abs generally serve to UN-inspire me. They’re already where I want to be, and in my insatiable desire for instant gratification this seems like a near-impossibility. There is no need for them to even be there, save to humiliate me. No, I FOUND my motivation: those poor souls worse off than me, sweating like Northside hookers at Confessional, truly swerving close to crashing into a real cardiac event. And in no way do I mean this as a slam or slight; these folks are attempting to honestly affect change their life. I admire the living crap out of how they are not there to impress the opposite sex, that there is no meat market aspect to their presence at the gym.  Maybe the pessimist in me finds solace in a half-empty glass. That sense of half empty means potential. Means hope.

As I watched some half-crazed sweathog pound his way around the track, I felt this sense of admiration grow with each lap he made in front of my bike. There he was, gallons of liquid fat emanating from his pores, lap by lap, taking real control of his health and his future. He’s willing to risk possible stroke in his efforts. I found myself cheering him on with each 1/7th of a mile wanting to raise my fist to him and shout “KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON, BROTHER! YOU GOT THIS THING!” I have no doubt that had I said that, he’d have come over and stomped me into a puddle of liquid waste; plus, it might seem like I was being rude. THIS is the kind of ad campaign that the YMCA needs to be running with real people like you and me and my (unbeknownst to him) new workout partner. Losing 1/4 to 1/2 of a percent of body fat is of no consequence to me…..this man dragging his caboose round and round in front of me has triple digit weight loss goals, and he’s there day after day, distancing himself with each pace away from the inevitable diabetic loss of limbs.

So there we have it. Outside of an admiration of Chuck Norris being Chuck Norris, I never again want to see some fit celebrity hawking the latest crunch/reclining device. It serves no purpose other than to repulse me when I read about how Madonna’s hybrid Tantric-Kabbalah-Step routine has resulted in her looking like a freakishly strong heroin junkie. I envision a future where one day, it’s Al Roker versus Willard Scott in a foot race through Central Park while trying to broadcast the weather, each in the throes of arrhythmic spasms; that’s motivation, my friend.

I don’t know if my new workout partner knows the kind of inspiration he’s providing me, since he doesn’t even know who in the hell that is shaking his fist at him with each passing lap. I think I might need to work on my socializing skills. Maybe I’ll bring it up, post workout, when I see him down at the doughnut shop

In the not-too-distant past, I cribbed a line from either a friend, a movie or some other source that basically went along these lines: when declaring myself dictator of the world or some other such nonsense I would add at the end “and I want the letter Q stricken from the English language!” This would ensure that anyone in the near vicinity was aware that I do, in fact, ride on that razor thin wire separating pure genius and sheer madness.

But while perusing the local Thrifty-Nickel-Saver-Penny-Pincher-Coupon-Classified paper that arrives EVERY Thursday in EVERY mailbox in this region, I was struck by a recurring theme that I’ve noticed in various locales around the Midwest. This theme is centered around an attempt to be clever by replacing the letters “C” and “Q” with a “K” at every turn. This results in groups named the”Krazy Kwilters” or convenience marts like the “Kountry Korner Store”. This must be a redneck version of trying to add “class” to an institution, similar to when people throw an “e” in after words like fair or old when describing cut rate flea markets or pay-by the-hour motels. And for unreasonable reasons this upsets me. Why?

Welcome to my mental hell. These are the kinds of things that torment me. Now, every time I pass by a Kwaint Kar Wash, the rage begins to build. I believe that it reached its zenith when one regional gas and rob chain named, idiotically, “Git N’ Go” was bought out and replaced by an even more ludicrously titled company: “Kum & Go”. Aside from all of the ludicrous and lewd references that abounded shortly after taking over (one co-worker went on a satirical tirade suggesting that here in this part of the country we ought to refer to it as “Ejaculate & Evacuate”), the fact was not lost on me that this was becoming a personal assault on my hardcore spelling values. Even 80′s metal band Quiet Riot got it right with their hit “Cum On Feel The Noise”……

On the one hand I might posit that the fury is directed at parallels to the Klan, originators of such name butchery. That seems like a decent place to direct the agitation, but I have doubts as to the fact that I’m that altruistic. Everyone hates the Klan; nothing original there. Is it false advertising that is so maddening? No, because when I see the signs on telephone poles advertising CEO pay from home stuffing envelopes, it doesn’t anger me, I’m just slightly incredulous that anyone would pay attention to such tripe. I stumbled around the vagaries of my discontent for quite awhile (something like 7 minutes) when a phone call from RoJo brought it all back into focus. He reminded me of one of the reasons I like folks out in this part of the country: Midwestern sensibilities. Sure, they’ll look both ways before rushing through a crosswalk, and yes, they will collectively pray for your broken toe to heal rapidly, but that’s not what I admired most.

No, what I like most is that, in general, people out here refuse to buy into the hype. They don’t put much stock in Lindsay Lohan. They don’t fawn over the weather because there is absolutely NO predicting the weather in the next hour, much less the next week. They know the value of hard earned calluses, of not being a sleazebag just to make it in this world. Khaki Dockers, Ford F-150′s, casseroles, and the music of Neil Diamond……these things are all sensible. And I kinda like the no-nonsense of it all; it serves to balance out chaotic elements of life. And in this one way, this inconceivable way, a crack has appeared in the foundation of Midwestern Sensibilities. This bizzare obsession with mis-spelling as a way to stand out contradicts the very notion of being sensible. It’s not cute; you’re not coy…..you’re simply angering me in much the same way screaming car salesmen on the tube cause me to scream back at the television and ensure I will NEVER buy from such howler monkeys. Like asbestos and DDT this flagrant misuse of K MUST be banned. Immediately. I insist.

You hear me, owners of the Kwik Stop? You listening Karl of Karl’s Kash & Payday Loan? I’m getting more irritated with every breath……so nock it off.

“Well…….I don’t like banks”

This baffling and absolute declaration of sentiment was Bones’ reaction to his latest statement from a large, faceless institution whose name rhymes with Bells Margo. In an apparent give-and-take of interaction, my brother was attempting to close down an account at the aforementioned institution and was down to dickering over the last, like, 26 cents. He’d tried all the usual routes: hours in the phone tree, unmotivated customer “service” people, halfhearted attempts to actually go IN to the bank and mostly cursing to himself that in fact these people ARE out to get him. He’d even tried to just let them have the 26 pennies, please stop wasting your paper and the mailman’s time, let’s just end this already, COME ON!!

As a fan of the human condition, most notably when it involves the insanity of those closest to me, I shot an eyebrow up in curiosity. Smelling the blood of familial weakness, I found this both hilarious and inane. This could not go unexamined:

me: “What do you mean, ‘I don’t like banks’? As in you’re one of the New World Order / Tri Lateral Commission/ IMF weirdos that goes around protesting crap in a gorilla mask? Or do you not like the concept of people handling money? Are you somehow offended by the architectural layout of banking institutions? Is this some sort of class warfare idiocy that you and your counter-revolutionary friends sit around scheming up? What in the hell are you talking about?!?”

Bones: “No, no, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not. (that statement, by the way, cinches the fact that RainMan lives). I just, you know, had this thing with the bank, and, you know, it was just all this crap, I mean, here’s how it went down……”

After recounting the details of his transactions and after I finished cleaning the beer up that I’d subsequently launched from my nose, I took a moment. You see, of all the wonderous traits that my brothers and I have inherited from our illustrious and prolific father, “Bones” Gulje may well have won some sort of lottery from hell. He’s not only certifiably OCD (in my non-professional opinion), he’s a pleaser (kinda like me) and absolutely non-confrontational (um, not so much on my end). And, as his oldest brother, I have taken many liberties at torturing him like a terrorism suspect. From idle pastimes such as asking him to reschedule a workout in order to witness the awkward reaction to interrogating him about his maniacal cleaning habits, I just can’t get enough.

My obsession with obsessive behavior is not limited to just one brother however. Ask my wife the next time she climbs a flight of stairs how many were there and she can tell you THE EXACT NUMBER. EVERY TIME. I can barely remember where all the tools on my fire truck are stored, and that’s my damn job for crying out loud. My father-in-law, as the supreme arbiter of this behavior (at least in the circle of people I know), used to make his daughters “jiggle the door handle” a specific number of times before leaving the office. He covered his hands with his sleeves when entering their homes, if they happened to be homes that included pets. His girls made him watch the movie “As Good As It Gets” only to have him respond with “I like that he has a schedule. I see nothing wrong with that.” Around the firehouse, there are certain crews that, if not served their lunch at 1100 on the hour or dinner at PRECISELY 1700 will pitch verbal tantrums to rival any room full of two year olds jacked up on sugar. Interestingly enough, the very people I work with, those who deal with the unknown on a call-by-call basis, are slaves to certain schedules, rituals and traditions that define the essence of who they are as firefighters, parents and people.

I’ve come to realize I don’t have any OCD tendencies, which, while a positive trait to most, actually pisses me off. I thrive on chaos, whether it be a raging house fire, delving into the sordid details of a friends’ messy divorce, or even taking it to an extreme like having string cheese for breakfast. I have no schedule to keep, save for the going to work thing. You wanna play hockey on Sunday night? Cool. How about growing pumpkins on a 1  acre patch just to see what happens? Sounds totally reasonable, at the moment. What do you think about moving to Missouri, see what that’s like? Um, okay.  In fact, if I make believe it’s my own idea, even better. Then the genius can flow, if only in my own mind. Result? I end up being a fan of old-school reggae and ska AS WELL AS bluegrass NOT TO MENTION the lyrical stylings of Bad Religion, a quasi-punk, social commentary hard band I love. This sucks. I’m gonna end up transitioning from “my, what eclectic taste you have in so many ways” to that dude pushing around a shopping cart full of plastic bags screaming at no one in particular, destined to die in an abandoned apartment surrounded by cats and old TV Guides.

I’ve got to develop a routine before this destiny reaches its fruition while there’s still time. I need to stop mocking Bones, maybe follow in his shadow for awhile, take a lesson. Maybe we can season this love of chaos with a little good old fashioned scheduling. I don’t know. But I think I’ll head into a local bank and see if their very existence can upset me, if only for a bit.