Old, Wrinkly, Hairy Balls.

Every time I go to the gym, I get myself psyched to get pumped. Pumped up to get pumped up, if you will.

I walk the handful of blocks to New York Sports Club singing to myself some verse from a DJ Shadow tune or a Bjork hook, quickly swipe my key-chain card, climb the stairs to the locker room, and stop to get some water. Refreshed, I enter the locker room.

Every time.
EVERY.
TIME.

Every freaking time I turn the corner in the locker room, my tender, blue eyes are assaulted with the slap-stick mockery of the human body in the form of old, wrinkly, hairy balls.

What the Flying F#*k!?!?!?!

Dude, seriously.
SERIOUSLY!

There is a huge freaking stack of COMPLIMENTARY TOWELS on the counter. It's on your way in! GRAB ONE. Hell, grab five.

Cover up your layers of wrinkly, blue-gray, veiny fat, and by all means, that cold-cut meat pocket of a flabby, hairy ass BEFORE you decide to cross the 40 feet of open floor to take a shower.

These are the same dudes who stand 5 feet from the urinal in busy public restrooms with fists on their hips like a superhero fireman, wielding his furious trouser hose to put out the fires of evil. When their done, you can always count on them standing in the corner of your eye (while you count the pores in the tile in front of you), shaking and pulling themselves for a solid minute and a half just to make sure someone (anyone) sees their johnson.

Today I finished my workout, walked back into the locker room, and had to stand facing my locker while I changed clothes, so as not to throw up at the site of the 400 lb tub of layered pork stacked on the bench beside me. He's sitting ON a towel, text messaging.

No joke, pah'dna, you can let your nuts air-dry all you want in the privacy of your own home, but while you're in a room full of dudes ...

Then it struck me. That's it. That's why.

These dudes CAN'T do this foul shit at home. Their families would kill 'em. No one, no matter how long you've been with someone, wants to see sasquach's obese newborn walking around your living room.

Sorry, it just ain't pretty. I know it's mean, but I didn't make the rules. It's not about being skinny, it's about the mystery of the human body, and the nausea of seeing it in an obese and wet-meat-loaf-like state. Barbacoa. Layers of beef.

I just threw up in my mouth.

Anyway, my theory is this. I think most of these dudes want to be seen. Not for some strange homo-erotic motivation (usually), but just to know they still exist. In some way, not having your bare ass seen by another human being for say, 27 years, could make you feel less human, I think. I would imagine that it'd make you feel like something is wrong with you (which, who are we kidding? Something's wrong with you, dude. You 'got more rolls than Holsom™).

Consider this my plea, married peoples of the world:

If your partner joins a gym, you should, with all haste and hostility, begin preparing yourself to see them naked.

Often.

Comment on what it looks like (good or bad, the truth is all part of the healing). Make sure that your partner knows that his/her ass, splotchy and Baked Potato-ish as it may be, has been seen that day. No need for them to go and drag it across the corner of an innocent young man's jeans sitting on the bench. No need to stand at the sink with your gentiles against the counter while you apply your third layer of pungent after-shave. You've been seen. You're still there. Very, very, there.

Now, where the hell is my other sock?