Goody Two Shoes

At the request of blog enthusiast Amerigo, I will recount my gym jaunt two mornings ago...

You see, Charles the Bronson has a fierce loyalty to New Balance Men's MX621WN (Men's) - White/Navy Crosstrainers, almost as strong as his loyalty to obsessive chicks and Wild Turkey. For the past six years, he has footballed/basketballed/ baseballed/ frisbeed/boned/bocced /boozed/swam/ran in those very comfortable, form-fitting, inexpensive sneaks. Frequently, because of his ferocious, Level 4 lateral moves, the shoe's sidestitching is prone to pop and unravel.

No worries: Charles has many a pair stocked up in his closet like extra cookies for the Cookie Monster. Only, alongside the new pairs are also the old pairs. The loyalty lasts forever. Surely when and if it rains and I want to partake in mudwrestling, I might need a pair of once-awesome but now ruined sneaks. Tossing out the broken shoes would be like executing an injured cheetah.

So imagine a giant pile of identical sneakers on a closet floor. Some are browning with imploded seams and some are white good as new. The current pair Charles uses to dominate the sports world is, at night, placed on top of the pile as he reorganizes the shorts, shirts, socks, soap, shampoo, s-somethingelses, that are in his gym bag. Charles goes to sleep, figuring he'll be ok to repack his gymbag in the dark, freezing cold of his apt at 5:30am.

At 5:30, there was a shrieking alarm followed by an awkward aerobed rollout where Charles landed facefirst atop strewn bookpiles and condom wrappers, Then, he put on some clothes from the piles on the floor. Charles disregarded fashion since he couldn't find the lightswitch (his eyes wouldn't really open), so he just kept layering until he felt warm enough.

Out the door without his wallet, keys, puffer, pbone, glasses, and gym bag, Charles semi-awoke and performed a 180 and pirouetted over to the coin/receipt-covered dresser to get his vitals and then over to the closet to grab at his sneakers, et al. Off to the gym he went.

In the lockerroom, Charles was met with a curious dilemma. Does he try to workout in the two left sneakers he brought, one of which has a gaping hole? Or does he workout barefoot? Charles deemed it funnier (maybe safer - Charles lifts a lot of heavy heavy weights) to work out shod rather than unshod. So he laced up and saw his right foot with an interesting outwards banana curve. Charles felt borderline deformed with his two right-turned left feet.

The anticlimax: No one noticed. Charles did pullups, pushups, leg lifts (for God's Sake!) but everyone was entranced in their routines. The treadmill was off limits, figuring no one wanted to watch Charles run like a pained ostrich. But if there was an aerobics class, then Your Charles would have found a place amongst the Hillary-lookalikes and gay men. He would have corralled a mat and some strength bands, and fought his way to the front. With a clear view at the mirror,waiting for the cheese techno to start, Charles wanted to see himself dance like everyone told him he did, with two left feet.