The Spartan

The Spartan has no name, apparently, because everyone just calls him 'The Spartan'.

 

But looks can be deceiving and I don't think I could possibly roll my eyes any more circularly than when I see the Spartan.

 

He wears those fitted workout pants.  The ones that are likely designed to give aero-dynamic advantage to well-trained athletes.  They are usually shiny and so, so, so tight I wonder sometimes if I shouldn't make it rain when he walks my way.

 

By all appearances he is the best-trained and most fit contemporary in our boot camp class.

 

He brings his weights and they are the expensive ones that click and tick and tock and lock and look like they belong to someone that could cause some cerious damage to someone's serebral.  (My weights, btw, are the colorful ones from Target).

 

And usually when he enters the class he lines up his equipment and more often than not he brings all of his gear in a piece of weight luggage.  I didn't know they had luggage for your weights.  The Spartan knows.

 

But all of the appearances subside when it comes time to run.

 

The Spartan, by no means, is the fastest.

 

And when my husband passes him, wearing the Adidas track pants we got on clearance at Ross, the Spartan looks disheartened and angry.  The aero-dynamic swishswishswish of his reflector-lined, seal-like skin can't pick up the pace fast enough to get past the thump-thump-thump of my squeeze's pace.

 

So when they return from the competitive run, the Spartan takes to his weight luggage and clicks and ticks and tocks and locks and sometimes he'll do a handstand to do those hand-stand push-ups that look so, so, so cool and difficult.  And the Spartan will eek out a singular handstand push-up before resuming his stance, readying for the inevitable reps ahead.

 

Back in class we all ready our weights for all of the lifts and plyometric ensembles our instructor is so fond of.  And from the corner of my sweaty eye as I thrust, painfully and hatefully, my 8 pound weight into the sky I see the Spartan grunting and thrusting his weights into the air.

 

It looks like he must be lifting some serious poundage.

 

But for those that have gotten lasik eye surgery we can count the ticks and tocks and smirk when we realize he is pumping less weight that the other dudes in class.

 

And it's not like I'm hating on the Spartan.  It's that he is clearly a show-off.  I've known lots of Spartans.  The ones whose looks are deceiving and who pretend to own the joint when, in reality, they are half-assing all the while.

 

No one likes a Spartan.  I wouldn't want to date a Spartan, or befriend a Spartan or work with a Spartan.  Because for those that have had the lasik, who have the inside-scoop or knows when to call a spade a spade finds the Spartans annoying.

 

Don't be a Spartan.