Conversations at the gym

I love going to the gym, not only because I like to take care of myself and build muscle, but also because you get some extremely funny characters in the gym.

Especially in the south of Johannesburg. A normal topic of conversation is football, although I was not the best football player in the world, and it is not my number one supported sport, I do follow the game and favor the red half of Manchester.The majority of the enthusiasts at the gym like me favor the Red Devils, however there are the occasional Liverpool supporters, and because they are outnumbered, they are very vocal.

And I don't know if it is just me, but the Liverpool supporters are the biggest bunch of sour bastards in the world. Ok fine, this season they have a right to be because Manchester United have finally become the most successful team in England after passing Liverpool's record of 19 league titles. But in general they are just sour. Instead of congratulating another team on a fantastic win, they will bitch and moan.

I provide an excerpt of a conversation between me and a certain Mr H over a few tricep pull downs at the gym last night. Mr H is a huge Liverpool fan.

Me: Evening Mr H, did you watch any of the football this weekend?
Mr H: F##king Blackburn Rovers should be f##king banned from the league for life. Saturday's result was a f##king disgrace.
Me: Easy Mr H!
Mr H: F##k easy, your team just overtook my team as the most successful team in England all because Rovers took a cheaque to f##king fall apart in the second half for the point.

At this point Mr Wolf comes into the conversation who is quite possibly the biggest United fan at the gym. I am purposely leaving out names in this post because I don't want the whole gym after me like the Yanks went after Bin Laden.

Mr Wolf: F##KING HELL H, you are just sore because your team hasn't won anything since Istanbul 2005. Come the end of the month we will be not only champions of England but champions of Europe too!
Mr H: Are you sure about that Wolf?
Me: So sure that he has put the house on the result.
Mr H: So come Sunday the 29th Ill be pulling into the gym parking lot seeing Wolf sleeping in his car! Shame!
Wolf: Perhaps some rich bitch will find me, take pity on me, and offer to take me into her mansion on the hill here!

As we are about to move onto our next exercises, one of the biggest bullshitters in the South moves into the machine next to us and proclaims.

"Geez you people can talk shit! But I dont come here to train I come for the bints. Look at that Thai girl over there. If my wife had assets like hers I wouldn't be going out at nights!"

The south is the best place in the world to gym!

Mujahideen and Divine Retribution

I really am not in a good space at the moment. Let me state that from the outset. I apologise if people have expectations about what these posts should be like, cause this will very possibly be way below my usually high standards.

According to Wikipedia, which granted is not the best source of information in the world, the word Mujahideen can be described as a group of people who are involved in a personal struggle. The singular version is a Mujahid, which in South Africa he would be called a struggalista, but owing to my roots, well go with Mujahid.

I am a part of a Mujahideen. So much so that I am asking people to forget about calling me the Lion of Lebanon and start calling me a Mujahid instead.

You spend your whole life interested in a sporting team, you invest copious amounts of emotion in a team who you really become emotionally attached to. To be frank I don’t give a toss about soccer, my team in the Sharks. Besides my girlfriend The Sharks mean the world to me. I have been supporting them since 1988 and wait in eager anticipation for them to succeed.

And here we are the end of another Super rugby season where my boys have made COMPLETE TITS of themselves! Being top of the log the whole season to throw the tournament away in the last few weeks GRATES MY BALLS! Especially loosing to The Bulls, especially loosing by 1 point after we scored the four tries that we needed to too make the Semi Finals.

In all of my years of supporting The Sharks I have never been upset to the stage where I say that I was disappointed in my team. But you know what: I am now. I’m disappointed by the fact that we led the tournament until the last four weeks where we decided to loose, I’m disappointed in the fact that we played conservative rugby the whole tournament where we never really chased four try bonus points games. I’m disappointed that we lost games that we should have won. Its unacceptable to be labeled one of the highest rated underachievers in the tournament, but we deserve that label! I really feel like a Liverpool fan, I might just have to wait 20 years to win a Super trophy.

But all of this can be put down to divine retribution. To God punishing me for giving copious amounts of shit to people about the teams they support. Maybe I shouldn’t give Michael so much shit that he supports the Lions. Michael I’m sorry boy. Please support who you want, you’ll never hear me chirp you about it again!

And its funny how fickle divine retribution can actually be. Me and my girlfriend hatched a plan to sneak in some quality time before church on Sunday night. We said that we would meet in the car park and that I would give her something at her car while her parents and her brother is inside. We would then steal a kiss. Turns out she arrived later then expected, so the whole ‘stolen quality time’ was not what we both expected. Then after church I unintentionally forget to shake her dads hand after he offered his hand to me!

I am a doos! WITH A CAPITAL D!

But that’s what you get for trying to do shit like that on holy ground. What did we expect things to go smoothly? I’m actually an idiot for thinking that it would! The laws of divine retribution says that we were doomed to fail!

What the failed attempt did do was bring us closer together as we now have our first embarrassing moment to share. I love you my girl, and we will always have that failed attempt in the church yard to look back at and laugh about.

What really brought me trough this whole disappointing weekend, because the Deccan Chargers lost as well and the West Indies are on the brink of humiliation in England, was my girl friend! She really calmed me down, made me realise that it is all just a game and there will be next year. She was there to pick up the pieces and to put me in my place to tell me to stop acting like a 5 year old crying over spilt Oros. I really love her and realised this weekend that she means the world to me. More then she knows I think. I hope you read this my love. I love you.

So its another year of waiting. And please, don’t feel shy to call me a Mujahid, I bladdy deserve it.