Waiting on the women

We were getting ready for a long hiking trip, the kind of excursion that makes heels blister and ages knees rapidly. The "we" in that sentence refers to an amalgamation of friends who held roughly the same age but occupied positions all across the gender spectrum. I was one of the guys in the group. The planned hike was sixteen and a half miles through some of the most gorgeous terrain in California - which is saying something - to the top of a national icon and back again. Only a handful of us were cognizant of the strenuous nature of the expedition, but even the ignorant like me knew the most important task to tackle before starting out: visit the trail head's head.

We approached the semi-sanitary lavatories with all gaiety. Afterall, we hadn't hiked but a click and our spirits ran high from the calorie loading of the day before. At least, my spirits ran high. Some of the members of our group felt mischievous. But I'm getting ahead.

Our tempers were dampened only a little by the long line that formed in front of the cement water closets. The queue was reminiscent of the formation by the men's room during the seventh inning stretch; a dead caterpillar that had no thoughts of revival.

I don't think any of us guys even noticed the line (although I did see an attractive brunette who smiled at me and said something very nice that I didn't understand in a foreign language when I asked the time) as we marched to the male lavatory and did our business. We expected the girls to do likewise in the facility marked for their own use.

When I emerged from the trail head's head, relieved and ready to start hiking, I discovered the girls had a completely different strategy in mind. Rather than wait out the lady line, they asked us to post a guard and shut down the men's room for them. Being impatient as well as gullible, we obliged.

Although I'll deny it vehemently if you ever bring this up at a party, I am a total klutz socially. Those of you who know me are entirely too aware of this fact, but it needs to be raised again for reference sake. I have the social skilz of a demented three year old, as evidence by the fact that I just used the word "skilz." But I am comfortable in my uniquely awkward persona and total inability to charm. I am satisfied with my delinquent personality and sub-par conversation abilities. I'm okay with being pushed around by those who are more assertive and better able to get their way than me. I am fine with being the door mat for all my friends. Really, I am.

For the record, I didn't write the paragraph above. I think it was Chip, our latest contributor, but if you have better information, please let me know.

For whatever unimaginable reason, I was chosen to guard the door. As soon as I assumed the bouncer position, a heavy-set male with a ruddy complexion and an Owen Wilson nose approached the door. Something about him told me he had to use the bathroom.

"Can I help you?" I learned the line from the service industry.

"Uh, yeah, is this the men's room?" Ruddy Nose looked tired; he wasn't in the mood to add another crook to his schnoz. I wasn't in the mood to give him one. For the moment we were amicable. But I had to answer this question.

"Some young ladies needed to use the restroom and didn't want to wait through the line which you can see to your left is longer than a Desperate Student post. If you'll just wait patiently--" My sentence was interrupted by a peal of laughter from the estrogen-swamped men's room. I grimaced and Ruddy Nose gave me an amused look.

But it got worse. I cleared my throat, adjusted my collar and spread my legs out to improve circulation. I felt a bead of sweat start to form at my hairline and reached to wipe it away without thinking much about it. Ruddy Nose noticed and evidenced his perception with a tight grin. He really had to go.

Another girl from our group arrived late and looked around for her friends. It didn't take her long to do the math and run into the men's room to join the others. I tried to stop her, to explain that there was now a guy in line who had a long established right to first restroom entrance and that there was another facility where she had the right of way. She would have none of it; her friends had invaded the testosterone sanctuary and she wanted to be in on the fun too.

I looked at Ruddy Nose, intending to shrug sheepishly, but noticed that a couple more guys had lined up behind the first male arrival. Each looking very ready for the trail head's head. Very ready. My shrug turned into a stare that extended straight forward above a gulping swallow. Now was not a time for making light of the situation; no joke would alleviate the tension.

If only the girls felt that way. Another peal of laughter accompanied a louder remark: "You are doing your makeup?" Whoa. I inhaled deeply, ignoring the pine scented air and tried not to think about the travesty I was dragging the other male hikers through. Or rather what the primping girls were dragging them through.

More laughter and jokes followed from the young ladies as the minutes ticked by. Three, four, five minutes passed as more men joined the parade in front of the blocked door like an extended tiger's tail. The line had grown to a couple dozen people by the time the girls emerged, looking nice, but too happy.

None of the guys said anything or even made eye contact with the exiting females. They were zebras leaving the giraffe's cage. The girls tried to claim that their shenanigans were planned and that they intended to put upon us. They said that and other things designed to assuage the tension and drain the embarrassed red from my cheeks. I didn't know whether or not to believe them. I still don't. Regardless, it'll be a while before I close down another men's restroom.

An hour in the weight room

Eight hours at General Mills is longer than twelve hours in most other places. The time drags worse than a Spike Lee movie and when the shift ends, I need to find relief. Yesterday afternoon, I sought that relief in the weight room at my local gym.

Weight rooms, in case you've never been properly introduced, are large, spacious areas with resistance-creating exercise equipment littering a padded floor. Cables and simple machines join free weights in giving wannabes and muscled posers a chance to "pump some iron." I trotted into the room with a pretty clear idea of how I was going to work out: I would watch someone else and do what they did at a lighter weight.

I found an octogenarian who looked familiar with the weight room ways and mores and followed his lead through a lengthy, if simple, routine. But the real show was watching everyone else labor through their workouts.

A male who couldn't have been older than my father's car, but looked about as heavy as said vehicle waddled into the room with determination. Everyone already working out paused to watch him make his way toward the lat machine (a rig that works your "wings"). The big guy set it at the highest level of resistance and then shifted his weight back and forth to bring down the bar. He broke a sweat doing this. Then he picked up his car keys and left.

A middle aged gentlemen entered the room wearing a long sleeved jacket and the short black shorts you'd see on a track coach from the 1980s. He was muscled, but not trim. This fact didn't keep him from removing the jacket and flexing for the multitude of mirrors that formed the room's only decoration. His display of fibrous firepower was impressive, but not captivating. Everyone soon returned to their workouts.

A middle-aged woman entered the weight room. Nobody looked up but everyone started a set. Even Bobby, a body builder with a Mr. Universe physique, who always takes two minutes between sets went back to his flies (a free weight exercise that works the pectoral muscles), started a set even though he had only completed his last one a half minute earlier. When I'd completed my set, I looked at the newcomer. She wasn't that attractive - in fact she was altogether comely homely - but she was the first woman in the weight room in some time and she was invading a man's domain.

A young woman entered the room. She was really attractive and wore the kind of workout gear that let everyone know. If the first gal created a stir, she caused a firestorm. The guys had no idea what to do with themselves. Most of us wanted to go over and say "hi," maybe try and get a date, but none of us had the nerve. Plus such forwardness would break one of the unwritten rules of the weight room: Only ask a girl out after she's turned down Bobby. Perhaps sensing our discomfort, she didn't stay long.

A young man who looked to be my age walked in. He was shorter than me and exceptionally thin. I figured I would be able to out-lift him and was anxious to see by how much. After meandering a bit, he grabbed the chin up bar and pumped out twenty legal chin ups (from full arm extension to chin over the bar). I was dumbfounded. The octogenarian tapped me on the arm: "don't encourage him, lad." Apparently, I wasn't the only one put out of sorts by his physical prowess.

A boy who couldn't be much older than the insurance-mandated age cutoff for the weight room entered and claimed a bench by throwing his towel down. He retrieved a bar from a rack in the back of the room and put a couple of weights on each end. A couple of the veterans joined me in watching. I think they knew what was going to happen next. The boy began to lift, but had forgotten to attach the moorings to secure the weight in place. One side of the bar went up faster than the other and the weights went clattering to the ground. I caught a smile from the man in the coach's shorts.

A small family (husband, wife and son) entered the room, although the mother was wearing baggy clothing and a bandanna that allowed her to enter as a man might. The father quietly gave directions to his son on how to lift using a cable pull. Then he performed a few reps while his son looked on. When Junior tried his hand at the exercise, it was apparent that the resistance was set too high. He hawed and heaved, losing all form and rendering the effect of the set negligible. If anything he risked injury. Dad looked on approvingly, but the family didn't stay longer than the time it took to complete that one set. I knew Junior would feel it in the morning.

Yes sir; another hour in the weight room...

Congratulations! You Won The Beauty Contest!

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the 2007 Beauty Contest Champion! Not you, young lady. Those pink digits will lose their velvety softness if you smack them into each other like the ruffians down there. Simply tap them together like chopsticks; pay no mind to the noise – or lack thereof; it’s the image that counts.

This young lady has just won the beauty contest! That means that she has delayed the natural biological process of aging and protected her God-given features better and more completely than any of the other contestants. Her face is only a little more textured than the day she was born. With strong SPF sunscreen and a little luck, she’ll stay smooth for a few more decades.

Give it up for the girl who has deferred entropy, halted decay and generally preserved perfection!

I can't hear you! Yeah, that's better.

This young woman was gifted with these stunning looks from the beginning and she’s done everything in her power to maintain them. Today, we recognize that sacrifice.

Hoist that trophy high! Or, because your arms are about as strong as a couple of rotten toothpicks, ask boyfriend to hoist it for you. Better yet, having large, heavy objects above your flawless visage is inadvisable because gravity has a way of causing hideous scares. We’ll just snap the photograph with the award on the table.

And we’ll need to have a conversation with boyfriend. Can’t have you two making any mistakes that would irreversibly alter your appearance, if you know what I mean.

Go now, and celebrate your victory with cake and streamers. Or, on second thought, better not touch the cake whose simple sugars and heavy fats would probably ride your slow metabolism right to your hips. Instead, try some more of that fat free yogurt; it’s a thinning substitute. And better dispense with the streamers too. Those can malfunction and cause nasty, career ending, flesh wounds.

On consideration, it’s probably best you avoid all sharp objects. A single two-second accident can reverse a lifetime of herbal treatments. Let others do the chopping, cutting, hauling and stacking; you can sit back and look beautiful.

Speaking of which, that gorgeous crown atop your head had better come down. Not only is it a gravity hazard, it threatens to tousle your carefully formed locks and ruin an otherwise impeccable hairstyle.

But go; enjoy your victory; you’ve earned it!