I used to workout with two other guys at my gym. I prefer to workout with others because it breaks up the monotony of the routine and provides you with the challenge of trying to keep up with the other guys. It makes something that isn’t really that much fun just a little bit more fun. We didn’t hang out much outside of the gym (only on rare occasion) be we had a good relationship). When a guy was missing in action, we gave him shit. When a guy was complaining about the job, or his woman or his kids, we gave him shit. But it was always in good fun.
Both of these guys were older than me and we are all from very differ upbringings and very different ethnic backgrounds.
One guy was a 42 year old Korean transplant who used to compete as an amateur bodybuilder and detailed cars for living. He was married and had three girls ages 12, 10 and 8.
The other guy was a 35 year old Mexican immigrate who ran a landscaping biz. He had two girls ages 15 and 5.
I'm an inner city Black kid, from DC with a 9 year old princess of my own.
The majority of our workout time was spent making fun of each other in between sets. And since we resembled the United Nations it was usually for some ethnically charged reason. Lots of jokes about ribs, rice, tacos, noodles, chicken, picking cotton, using chop sticks, building railroads, swimming the Rio Grande, etc... Talk of John Shaft, Bruce Lee, Pancho Via, Mike Tyson, Cesar Chavez, Tupac and Jakie Chan.... Dry Cleaning, Nail Shops, Black Exploitation Movies, Rib Shacks, Cinco De Mayo, Taco Stands, Do Jo’s, Crips, Bloods.... It never stopped... But again... all in fun...
One day that all changed... when in between sets... we talked at length about what parts we liked... and didn't like... about the movie... Hanna Montana, which all of us had been forced to see the previous weekend with our children... And it was a serious conversation... until we actually realized what we were talking about.... The point was brought to our attention by several other gym patrons who decided to jump in and help us realize that we were in fact in the Man Cave talking about a 16 year old Country singer and how we would have filmed her movie differently.
The shame rolled off of all three of us more profusely then the sweat. Effectively... our workout was over at that point. I didn’t even finish my final set of whatever exercise we were doing. I just went to the locker room, grabbed my gym bag an left... I drove home in defeat. None of us ever spoke of that conversation ever again.
RS
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