Inappropriate Things

“Did you ever know (name redacted)?” said Kenzi at D&D one night.

“Oh, gosh, yes,” I said, recalling the socially awkward guy in question.

“Yeah, he got married. They have three kids now.”

“How?” I said. “Was it Stockholm Syndrome?”

Which was not at all what I intended to say.

---

Sometimes I say inappropriate things.

It’s not intentional. Mostly. Usually. Quite often really.

Honestly, I wonder if I might have some kind of brain damage that stops me from thinking before I speak.

---

When my friend Tiffany and I were training for a 5k together, we tried every tip and trick in the book (the book in this case being the most recent issue of “Runner’s World” magazine). We did intervals, ran sideways and backwards, stopped at park benches to do push-ups – basically, anything we could come up with that allowed us to actually run less. One day, Tiffany mentioned something new.

“Fartleks?” I asked.

“It’s a Swedish word,” she said. “It's a type of sprinting.”

Later, Benjamin asked us how the training was going.

“Very well!” I said. “Tiffany and I went fartleking after work and it was sooo hard and we were all out of breath and sweaty. Her husband's out of town, so she had nothing else to do, and mine's cool with it. But man, are my thighs sore!”

Benjamin opened his mouth as if to say something, then quickly shut it in a shoddy attempt to suppress wheezes of laughter.

“That’s… actually not as dirty as it sounds,” I said lamely.

---

One morning after a workout, Matt and I stumbled back home from the gym.

“I’m going to be so sore later, I can tell,” said Matt. “I’m tired now!”

“Tired? Don’t you mean virtuous?” I asked him.

He said, “Oh, sure. Is that what that feels like?”

“Of course! Being virtuous feels terrible! Why did you think it was so hard?” I said.

He chuckled. “That must be why all those virtuous saints and martyrs died horrible deaths...”

“Yeah, it’s true. Remember all those times as teenagers when we DIDN'T have sex because it would have been wrong? Remember how that felt? That was virtue.”

Matt grimaced at the bitter taste of truth. “Virtue is such a cockblock,” he said.

“No, wait! Virtue is supposed to be a good thing! Don’t listen to me!”

---

“It’s this great exhibit I saw once,” I said, describing Body Worlds for my coworkers. “There was like a mad scientist or something, and he took these bodies that had been donated for science and preserved them by injecting them with some kind of liquid plastic. They’re all posed in interesting ways to show how complicated the human body is.”

“It sounds disturbing,” said Benjamin.

“No, it’s great how all the organs in the torso fit right together! Like, God must be awesome at Tetris.” I said.

“I bet,” said Tiffany. “He's probably got the high scores. He totally rocks at Tetris.”

“Oh, not the high scores, surely,” I said. “He’s really more of a Sims guy.”

---

As I walked out the door, I gave myself the pat-down: checking each of my pockets in turn, to be sure I had my wallet, phone, and keys.

Quoting Austin Powers, Matt said, “’Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch...’ So, do you have your testicles with you, then?”

I said, “Well, are you coming with me?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.

“Because anybody only ever needs one, you know. That's why you have two of them. You're meant to share.”

---

“It was terrible!” I said, after Tiffany and I finished our 5k. It had been around the city park in front of the library, so afterwards we had stopped in to apprise Benjamin of our experience. “They laid it out all wrong! At the three mile mark they had us circle the pond again instead of heading directly to the finish line. It was more than FOUR miles!”

“That’s silly!” Benjamin said. “All they had to do was follow the route the city uses for all its other races!”

“Right, but this one wasn’t sponsored by the city – the CITY would have put more than one water station in. Seriously, only one water station at the one mile mark! They could at least have put in another one if they were going to make us run FOUR FREAKING MILES!”

Tiffany sighed. “At least our entry fees went to benefit that little girl with leukemia,” she said, charitably.

I made a bitter face. “Yeah, well, I bet SHE didn’t have to run four miles!” I said, because sometimes I say inappropriate things.