A Jock I'm Not, Part Two

I'm never going to be a jock, but doggone it, it looks for all the world like I'm starting to dress like one.

First of all, I needed to get some compression shorts and shirts for when I jog so I could keep everything saggy in check. It was getting to the point where I was kind of afraid my belly might whack me upside the head, or as Christian comedian Mike Warnke once put it, have my belly button make suction on my forehead and suffocate me to death.

If you want to call the things girdles, then so be it. Even Jesse said the other day that they make me look "a little" skinnier. Thanks, Hoss. Your dad can use all the encouragement he can get, if only just "a little."

When I started the 5k class, I was told by Julie, one of the instructors, that I needed to get some special running shoes, just like Forest Gump. C'mon ... you've gotta be kidding me. I've been perfectly satisfied with my $35 Wal-Mart specials. What difference could shoes possibly make?

But who am I to argue with Attila II? Off we went to Omega Sporting Goods, where I picked up some "neutrally balanced" Nikes. I've jogged once in them, and I'm still not ready to qualify for the Olympics. What gives?!?

Run, Forest, run.

Finally, I've had the same pair of weight-lifting gloves for more than a year now and the Velcro has worn almost completely off. Velco, by the way, is capitalized because it's a brand name. I know that after I once received a letter from the company's attorneys. Wonder how they'll react now that I've written that their product has, in NASA-speak, shown signs of degraded performance?

At any rate, I've ordered a brand-new pair of gloves off Amazon.com. They come with a wrist brace and everything! As soon as I put them on, I expect to be bench pressing no less than three bills, maybe three and a half or four.

If I have a shirt, shorts and shoes like a runner, then I must be a runner. If I'm wearing hard-core weight-lifting gloves, then I must be ready to take on that big dude from the Soviet Union they used to always show on Wide World of Sports.

Or not.