Worst job I ever had

Hey, I got me some biceps, a narrow waist – and a round bulge in my shorts, if you know what I mean. So I moved myself down to Fort Lauderdale and got me an apartment at 34th and Dixie Highway. Nice pad – even got me a separate bedroom with its own bathroom. View out the bedroom window was onto another apartment, however. The lady there tricked with some redneck from Margate every night, worse is my luck.

But hey, I’m in Lauderdale and because of my biceps, waist, and bulge – got me a job as a personal trainer at this gym on Wilton Drive. Sure, all the guys are gay, right? Well, I’m not, but hell, I don’t mind if they look me up and down while they’re writing me checks for $60 an hour to tell them what they should already know how to do ... which is, like, lift a weight? An idiot’s born every minute.

“Okay, buddy, let’s do 12 benches at 90 pounds,” I say to this sap named Don who comes from Tuscaloosa. I come from Dayton, Ohio – great state, but damned cold come wintertime. So this Tuscaloosa Don lays himself down on the bench press and pumps out his 12 reps. Good job, I say – especially for a train-wreck 60 year old with bigger biceps than me, and a narrower waist. I mean, come on – 60 years old and the body like me? I’m 27. Freak.

“So get this story,” he says to me one day. “I was reaching for a quarter weight, and this black says ‘hey that’s mine,’ and I say, ‘why’s it on the rack then? And the black guy, he says, ‘I want to use it,’ and I say to the black guy, ‘that’s too bad,’ and he says, ‘well, we’ll see about that,’ so I tell the black guy, ‘try making me,’ and he says, ‘that’s stupid,’ and I respond, ‘who you calling stupid,’ and he says, ‘I’m no one to judge,’ and I say, ‘you’re fuckin’ rude,’ so I go to the manager and say, ‘this black guy, he just threatened me over a 25-pound weight, do something or I quit.”

So Tuscaloosa Don, he told me the manager went over to the guy and kicked him out of the gym. And then Tuscaloosa Don got his 25 pounds and did his set.

Me, I just wondered why that guy had to be black in the story. I mean, how did that figure, any more than his eye color?