Imperialism

I was at the gym the other day, Fitness First, to be exact. It was a nice clean place. Like the kind you’d find in California, but smaller. I didn’t mind. I was in there during the morning hours when everyone else was at work. There were just a few other people in the weight room, another on the modern treadmills and no one on the stationary bikes, elliptical machines, stair masters, or weight machines. The most crowded area, being five people, was in the kickboxing room. The music was blasting and the people were in sync with their less than lethal strikes.

That made me wonder as I stared in like some old perv.

Western trends have arrived obviously. Kickboxing classes are here. I’m sure power Yoga was too. Pilates even. All a good form of training and conditioning. Well, how about the mixed martial arts? Muay Thai. Bazillian Juijitsu.

There’s got to be a market here.

Gone will be the old men and women doing morning Tai Chi in the park. In will be  grandpa in a rear naked choke from grandma trying desperately to tap out. It would be one chaotic scene at the park.

Of course, I’m sure it wouldn’t be at the park. Gramps would probably enroll in some dojo or something around town with a proper cage.

I had myself a business idea.

That always helped me during a workout. I decided to return to the dumbbells I left on the ground. They were in kilos. I hated converting metric. And obviously, they were too heavy for me. Adopt already. Stupid gym.

Inert

One of the worse things in the world are lines. Not the ones that make up pretty pictures. Or the ones you get a beating for if you cross. No. It’s the kind you stand in. And the worse of lines are the ones at the airport.

I hate being in them.

There are two airports I know of that have an additional line for transferring flights. That’s the Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan and the Narita International Airport in Japan. All I can say about this extra line is that it’s annoying. It’s an extra security check of body and luggage scans. I imagine it’s to catch people who stole life vests or flotation cushions. Maybe those are special foam detection devices they use. I don’t know. We in the U.S. are decades backward in some technologies.

I hate you AT&T and your lying 3G signal bars.

The thing is, you’re transferring flights. That means you do have a limited time to get to your next flight. Being a cross Pacific flight you’re on a plane with hundreds of people. Getting off the flight you have to wait. And wait a long time. Wait for that door to open. Wait for first class to leave. Wait for business class to leave. Wait for everyone in front of you. Wait for each row to empty out. Wait for everyone to grab their God-knows-what’s-inside-that-oversized-carry-on jammed in the overhead bin.

I hate you extra fee for check-in luggage.

All that and you come out into another line. With the same damn people you wished got crushed by their own luggage. But this time, all the babies are awake and crying. Screaming even.

That might be it. Yeah. that’s why I hate lines so much.

It’s people you’re stuck in line with.

My flight is heading to Hong Kong. Most of the people on my flight are from there. And maybe it’s me, but I find them rude. Their manners and etiquette are horrendous.

Take personal space. For us, it’s about an arms length. Maybe half of that if you know the other person. Half of that if you two are intimate. And maybe even half of that if you were just plain creepy. But my point is, we have guidelines. And being that I don’t know anyone, they should be at arms length, not occasionally bumping into me with the bags. That’s even beyond the creepy line.

The other thing is forming the line. It’s a big mess. They don’t know the cardinal rule of lining up one behind the other. The transfer line is this long thick mass of people. The group in front of me is this grandma/grandpa couple travelin with their son. All three of which are lined up side by side. And I can’t tell what the people next to me were trying to do. Were they trying to get ahead of me? I can’t believe it. Don’t they see me here. Abiding by the rules. Is this inherent in their culture? Always trying to get ahead of the next person. No matter what they do. No matter where they were. Back in the states security would straighten this out. Pull this mother and son aside and beat them senseless. Okay, maybe I’m angry. I should say something. But she’s talking to him right now. In Cantonese of course, so I couldn’t understand. She’s probably telling him how to inch up in line subtly and how to get ahead of people in life. My knuckles turn white.

I need to do something. I know exactly what to do as a passive aggressive. Let’s play the game with them. Every time the person in front of me moves, I’ll move. And you know what? I’m at I know you distance. See that? Fuck it. I’m at intimate distance. He doesn’t notice. He thinks this is normal. Don’t make me bring the creep on.

Wouldn’t you know it. They are oblivious to me. In fact. They are ahead of me. In any sort of normal line this would be impossible, unless you cut. And they are cutting. This is enough to warrant some verbal abuse.

However, the people ahead of me beat me to the punch. They turned around and said something. Again, I couldn’t understand Cantonese too well. The mother stopped. Then laughed. And beamed a smile. The ancient happy I’m-so-sorry-I-didn’t-know apology. How predictable. She doesn’t want a scene. This is saving face. Oh how I wanted to punch that face. Especially when she’s starting to inch up again. What the hell woman!

Pulling that bag of hers. Same as her son’s. And… same as that fellow. Wait a sec. Now they are holding hands.

I hate being completely in the wrong.