Thursday 15 May 2008
Today in history: It's another biggie -- the launch of Sputnik 3 and 4 two years apart, the launch of the last spacecraft in the Mercury project, Mercury-Atlas 9, the founding of Las Vegas, the sentencing to death of Anne Boleyn. And the opening of the first of many McDonald's, for which I as a cheap'n'cheerful kinda guy am very grateful.
In my own world, there's not much going on, hence the 10-day gap between the last entry and this one. However there is some fucking weird shit going on at the gym. I was there last night, my usual Wednesday, and Next Door Trevor was down with a 24-hour bug and didn't come along. So I did my usual thing, a few warm-up sets on one of the circuit machines -- got into a minor argument with a sanctimonious old twat about my using a circuit machine without being in the circuit; I know I'm technically in the wrong, but there's only one of those machines, it's good to warm up with, and it wouldn't have killed him to go to the next one along and come back to this one a minute later, but I digress -- as well as some arms, shoulders and chest. Might have surreptitiously checked out the various cuts of beef on display, just a glance here and there as I always do, but kept to myself as usual.
Later, in the locker-room, the weirdness started. First, I'm pretty sure I got the come-to-bed eyes from a dude in the showers after that. He was directly across from me, shower doors open, and spending waaaay too much time washing his gentleman's area. As usual, I had my shower doors closed -- I'm old skool; so sue me -- but I could see through the frosted glass that he was kinda checking me out too while doing it. Not a bad-looking guy, I suppose, as I discovered when I finished my shower, but a little old for my as-yet underdeveloped taste since I'd guess he's probably early 40s and that's like the same as my dad.
Then, more weirdness -- Angry Chinese Dad was there along with Sad Little Chinese Boy, his son. I've seen these two before, and there is something just not cool going on there. ACD is around 40, I'd guess, and SLCB must be about 14 or 15. He's not big, but he has some facial fluff and that's the kind of age I'd put him at. ACD always seems grouchy; no surprise that I don't speak the language so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely, but it seems like SLCB does not want to be there and ACD drags him along every time. I've never seen them in the pool or the aerobics area or the free weights area, just the locker room. It seems ACD comes for a de-stressing steam and shower, and SLCB comes along because he's told to. As I said, I don't know what's being said, but ACD always seems to be raising his voice, and although SLCB seems to do what he's told, you can see the resignation and dejection in his body-language. Once or twice ACD has said something and SLCB has replied with plaintive indignation, and ACD sounds like he's about to tear the kid a new one. Usually they sit in silence, except when ACD barks something to the kid, who for the most part just nods and does whatever it is.
I've never wanted to be fluent in a foreign language as much as I have since watching these two.
Last night took the cake, however. At some stage, I left the steam-room for my shower. A minute or two later, these two came in and took cubicles as well. SLCB tried to take the one on the end, next to mine, but ACD had a meltdown and eventually after a very short argument, SLCB ended up across from him on my other side. I was about to go for a second session in the steam-room when I heard more shouting and turned back to see -- ACD had charged out of his cubicle and flung the doors of his son' s cubicle open. Seriously, the look on his face... I feared for the kid's safety. There was much loud talking, and the same quiet pleading from the kid, then ACD folded his arms and stood there watching the boy shower and barking instructions. From my vantage point at the entrance to the shower area -- I was pretending to towel-dry my hair -- I could see that every time the kid turned away, ACD reached in there and turned him round again so he was always facing outwards. Seriously, it was fucking creepy - I have no idea what was going on; I can't imagine the kid was having a wank or something and needed adult supervision to make sure he did only what was necessary, but I'm pretty sure that an invasion of privacy at that sort of level must be illegal. I really wish I knew what the hell was happening, and I really wish I could speak Chinese.
Not sure what I could have done, but I also feel really shit for not having done something, anything, about it at all. Stereotyping, sure, but I'm fairly sure ACD would karate-chop me in the face if I confronted him (yes that's probably racist to say, but it's also probably true, so sue me), and I'm not entirely sure what's going on so I might have the wrong impression entirely, but... I dunno, the whole thing was extremely unsettling and I don't know what to do. I wonder if Trevor being Trevor would have said something or done something? I just stood there like a tit.
-C