I was at the gym working on my off-season body with Lance and Preston.  We were getting really sweaty and my endorphins were pumping ecstatically. 

“Wow!” I yelped, “wow Lance, I’m so happy on this new Double Track Stair-Liptical, I could just work my glutes forever, look at me Lance, I’m so happy, look at me,” I giggled. 

Preston looked down his nose at me from the adjacent fitness machine and asked, “Dean, are you high on drugs?” 

“I’m high on fitness, yay!” I declared. 

“So that’s what you’re calling drugs these days…” Lance shook his head with Preston and then suggested, “you know Dean, if you’re so into fitness, why don’t you become a trainer and get paid for it?” 

“You mean to say, someone would actually pay me to work out all the time and have fun beyond my wildest dreams, fitness is heaven, heaven I tell you!” I felt my glutes grow even more with the thought of being a fitness trainer. 

I needed clients.  I looked around the gym and saw a tweaky skinny man about to walk into the locker room.  I jumped off my Double Track Stair-Liptical workout machine and ran over to the potential client. 

“Hi,” I said as I blocked his path. 

The man looked confused, he looked side-to-side, and then behind him. 

“No, I really mean that, hi,”  I repeated, “normally, I wouldn’t even talk to you or look at you because you’re one of those guys that never really works out and just cruises the gym locker for sex but now hi.” 

The tweaky skinny man responded, “Why are you saying hi to me now?” 

“Yes, well,” I continued, “maybe one day a long time ago, before you discovered amphetamines, you were not hard to look at but now that you look terrible, don’t you think it’s about time to reach out for fitness help?” I smiled, “I could be your trainer and possibly one day, desperate people may want to let you blow them without a cloud of steam covering the shame that is you.” 

“Please move out of my way,” The tweaky skinny man headed into the locker room and he was never seen again. 

Just then, a short stalky (wider then he was tall) muscle creature approached me, “I think I can help you, my name’s Chop, let’s talk outside of the gym though,” Chop pointed up, “cameras…” 

Once we were outside, Chop offered me a job as one of his trainers at a different gym located Downtown.  The job was really simple; I would wait on the corner outside of the gym for clients, they would buy training packages from me up front, I would inject them with fitness enhancers, and then we would workout happily together, yay!  I took the job and headed Downtown.  Once I was at the corner, a client approached me. 

“Hey man, are you Chop’s friend?”  A very itchy looking man in tattered clothes and missing teeth asked me. 

“Yes, Chop has me selling fitness on the streets, would you like to buy some?” I propositioned. 

The man used his shaky hand to pull money out of his pockets, “I need my bombitas, my sweet bombitas, here’s the cash.” 

I didn’t understand what exercises bombitas were but I was sure that I could give my client the workout he was requesting.  The gym must have been under construction because it just looked like an empty warehouse with no exercise equipment at all.  I pulled out the syringes filled with the fitness enhancers that Chop had given me and I injected the itchy scratchy shaky man. 

“Alright!” I chimed, “let’s start working out, we can do it, you’re a champion, it’s time to…” 

The man curled up into a ball on the floor and started rocking back and forth saying, “My kids oh my kids my kids,” over and over. 

I was perplexed but not deterred, “C’mon, jumping jacks time!” I picked him up off the floor and pulled his arms apart and then together above his head in a clap, “now jump, now jump, jump, jump again, jump again.” 

We did this about ten times and then he started yelling, “My heart my heart, what’s happening to me, I can’t feel the right side of my body, these are bad bombitas man!” 

“No, these are bad jumping jacks but you’ll get better, I promise,” I let go of him for a little rest before starting the next exercise. 

I reached into my gym bag for the jump rope I brought and when I turned back around, the man was running out of the door, ‘Crap, I just lost my first client,’ I thought.  As the rest of the day progressed, a pattern emerged; as soon as I injected the fitness enhancements, my clients would NOT want to work out, and they would run away from me.  I decided to tell Chop about the problem. 

“Oh man, you can’t have our clients running around on the streets right after you shoot them up,” Chop said, “sometimes we have 20-30 people in here just kickin it till the stuff wears off.” 

“But I thought the fitness enhancers would make them want to work out, not curl up into balls of uselessness,” I contested. 

Chop looked at me like I just told him that I wasn’t gay and the world was flat, “Dean, you do know what a metaphor is, don’t you?” 

“Yes, that’s some kind of fitness enhancer isn’t it, I’m sure I’ve taken it, if fact I’m on Meta-Five enhancers right now,” I scratched at my head wondering what Chop was getting at. 

“Dean, I’m going to have to let you go,” Chop then asked for his injectables back and I was officially fired from his gym. 

The next day, I told Lance and Preston about the whole ordeal and they laughed.  They laughed hardest when I told them that Chop thought I had a problem with taking Meta-Fours even though I had no problems taking them in the past.  Laughter is infectious and the more they laughed, the more giggly I felt inside until I started to laugh too, and then I felt better about losing my job as a fitness instructor.