Bodybuilding Mirrors All of Life: Only in Real Life

Real life provides the greatest material for the finest of storytelling . . .

A couple of months ago, I went to visit a friend of mine in Naples, Florida. A much welcome invitation to escape the cold, dark Michigan winter even for just a little while. Since I'd never before ventured to this part of Florida I was eager to see what the hype was all about. What an experience.

The weather was simply lovely; warm and sunny. Even in January! Everywhere you looked, people were done up in shorts, tank tops, flip-flops, sunglasses, sundresses and other like garments all to accommodate the beautiful weather. (Before it crosses anyone's mind, at NO time did I wear a sundress or anything remotely similar.) The sky was bright blue, the palm trees a lush green and the landscape fantastically manicured. It was indeed picture-perfect.

Liz and I spent our days toggling between the beach and the pool. Peaceful? For the most part. While Liz relaxed in her lounge chair, read her books and freely basked in the sun, I read for a little bit and then spent an astonishing amount of time applying the most potent sunblock known to humankind, bobbing up and down to adjust the massive umbrellas and doing anything else necessary to hide from the tropical sun so that it didn't fry me into a charcoal briquette. It worked. I am still scary white.

True, we did a lot of reposing but quite aside from this, Liz and I went to the gym and trained every day. It was a quaint little gym stocked with all of the essentials to get in a good workout and we took full advantage of it. We trained hard. Just like home.

During one of our workouts, a woman approached us and inquired whether I was "natural." Huh? When pressed further, she refined her query and with a deliberate glance around the room to make sure that no one else was listening in asked, in a hoarse whisper, if I did . . . steroids. Suddenly, I had an inexplicable yet overpowering fondness, perhaps even love, for this woman. Immensely pleased with her error, I advised that I'd never taken drugs of any kind. I explained that my physical development was the result of nothing more than many years of training, a lot of trial and error and vigilant attention to nutrition.

Relieved, she quickly explained that her business was in "woman's natural health." Ah-ha. I've never really heard of such a thing. And without an inkling of encouragement verbal or otherwise, she plowed onward exhorting the virtues of living naturally, taking natural supplements and exercising regularly as a means for "aging women" to stay vital, active and youthful. I couldn't believe my ears. It was hypocrisy at it's most exquisite.

As this woman continued her dissertation, I slowly glanced downward and immediately fixated on her enormous fake boobs. When, precisely, did silicone become "natural?" Her workout top was, generously estimating, at least one size too small. Any sudden movement on her part and it was over; they would break completely free of all confinement and be just . . . well . . . everywhere. Totally absorbed in the great irony of the moment, I wasn't all together certain how long I had been looking gawking. Since I didn't want to get caught surveying her monstrous boobs for what certainly could be construed as a socially inappropriate length of time, I quite consciously wrested my stare from her bosom and desperately tried to appear wholeheartedly interested in what she was saying.

But within moments, my attention wandered yet again. And as I regarded her face, I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't one crease or wrinkle anywhere to be found. And I really looked . . . HARD. In fact, her face was utterly flawless. Completely expressionless. Not one hint of emotion. Not one tiny indication that she ever really lived. Put it this way, if you were a mere bystander and could not hear the conversation monologue you could safely conclude any number of things. She could be expounding upon the finer points of her golf game just as easily as she could be commenting on the weather, telling a dirty joke or announcing that Moby Dick ate her husband. It didn't matter. Her expression remained unaffected.

After a few moments I just had to do it. No matter how hard I fought the urge I simply couldn't help myself. Abandoning all social appropriateness otherwise mandated by these unbelievable circumstances, I had to see if Liz was catching this awesome irony. So as not to appear too terribly disinterested, (which I was) I chanced a quick look at Liz out of the corner of my eye whom, ever gracious, met my gaze just long enough to shoot me a look that my mother often employed when I was a kid and I knew it intimately. A visual kick in the shins. An extraordinarily serious warning to remain absolutely silent under penalty of serious disfigurement, disembowelment or death. Within a millisecond of delivering her message loud and abundantly clear, Liz returned her attention, undivided, to the blathering barbie doll. No question left in my mind. Liz was indeed a pro at controlling a social heathen.

All of this wisdom, all of this unsolicited advice about what it means to "live naturally," and "age gracefully" from the silicone-enhanced lips of a woman who didn't own one square centimeter of "natural." SERIOUSLY?

When she was done lecturing and Liz and I were summarily dismissed like adolescent schoolgirls, we walked from the gym without a single word between us. There was nothing to add. It was all just way too perfect.

Like I said people, only in real life . . . only in real life.

4 Comments

There is something strangely funny seeing the head shot of Barbie at the beginning of the blog and to the immediate left seeing the pix of you and the bear. Only in real life...

Posted by: Eve | Monday, 15 March 2010 at 03:59 PM