If I were a unabomber ... I mean, if I abandoned the use of my Mach-3 in favor of Taliban facial hair and migrated to a dilapidated chicken coop where I would cackle maniacally as I synthesized mounds upon mounds of TNT, I would have to go Pearl Harbor on the Aquatic & Fitness Center. Yes, the AFC would be public enemy number one for me in my condemned chicken coop. Unfortunately, a rival wannabe has beat me to the punch and targeted the treadmill oasis before I could even muster raunchy mustache stubble.
So the goof phones in a bomb threat the other week, and the entire gym goes into "Die Hard" style lockdown. Bruce Willis is climbing through air ducts with Rin Tin Tin on all fours behind him, sniffing out Kazynski Jr.'s supposed hydrogen bomb. Students looking to scorch that second helping of ice milk off their expanding posteriors are shooed away by officers code-redding in walkie-talkies. The gym shuts down for six hours and posteriors expand exponentially.
And for what?
Did even a single elliptical machine "BAM!" its way into fitness heaven? I think not. The call of doom was a sham! You know why? Blowing up the AFC is stupid. I fibbed when I said I'd Wile E. Coyote it to the moon. If, by some microscopic chance, I ever progress beyond puberty and my facial hair ducts (the ones that could sprout me out that bonkers beard that seems to be all the rage with straight jacket inhabitants) are activated, then I sure as heck wouldn't focus my nutty energy on taking down a gym. Some random schizo did not just happen upon the AFC in the University Yellow Pages and say to himself, "Well, I've got 30 minutes until TRL, and I sure am bored..."
No! The perpetrator had a motive. That call came from someone on the inside.
Oh yes, I have a double-dose of shifty-eyed possibilities posing provocatively in my police line up. Although deceptively baby-faced, I am quite the investigator. Taking much from my Andy Griffith-turned-Matlock mentor, my "Murder She Wrote" type-writin' mama and that Father Dowling dude who solved crime with his sexy nun sidekick from the streets, I can play Clue with the best of them.
Watch: IT WAS PROFESSOR PLUM WITH THE CANDLESTICK IN THE OBSERVATORY! Impressive, I know. Now, for the usual suspects.
Whenever I happen through the AFC, and am saying to myself, "Self, how would you like to go for a jog?" and myself then replies, "Dude, you read my mind. Take your biz upstairs post haste," I find this massive congealing of stretching females barricading the treadmills. The sign-up sheet for my cardiac activity of choice reminds me of the DMV. Pretty much, if you want a shot at a stationary run, bring a tent and some rations because you're going to be camping out - for about a week. Such conditions promote eye rolling, arm crossing and, in extreme cases, bomb threat calling.
No one wants to lodge at the AFC for a good month and a half just to keep expanding posteriors in check. It's a running machine, not a Duke game. But what is a health conscious student with little time and no patience to do?
Well, if you're a high roller, you gamble that your Nokia can outsmart the Feds, and you call in a bomb threat around two-ish. You do your best impersonation of the "Scream" phone guy and pray to 'G' that Bruce Willis and the canine cop have split by 6 p.m. (right after you get out of that beastly late seminar).
You stroll up at about 5:55 p.m., Adidas duffel bag in tow, just as Brucie clears the area and waves his walkie- talkie posse away. Now you have your pick of the cardio equipment litter. List, shmist, baby, you're in there.
Still, my Clue-spawned intuition tells me to dig deeper. What about the swimmers? Be it morning, noon or night, those swimmers are shackled to the AFC, butterflying, backstroking and then butterflying some more. I am convinced that their bountiful energy is contained within the hardboiled shell of dining hall eggs. At breakfast they consume like 50 a piece. They construct elaborate egg pyramids in ceramic bowls and then Hoover them fast and furious. I always pondered what a swimmer would be forced to do in times of egg crisis.
Funny, how there was in fact just such an incredible edible egg shortage the morning of the bomb threat. What if one swimmer didn't get his egg on? What if he was relegated to the inferior pancake? Sure, your blood sugar is pumping for about 30 seconds after a syrupy edible is inhaled, but then, uh-oh, you're left dry and no longer high right in the middle of butterfly lap five million.
Do you go to practice subsisting on pancake fumes or do you dial in a bomb threat? Father Dowling and sexy nun pray it's the first, but fear it's the latter.
Conniving cardio machine fiend with cell phone in the library or eggless swimmer with tin can attached to string in the ballroom? Neither possibility is that far-fetched if you think about it in terms of a Mentos commercial. A little bomb threat, quick money shot with candy logo and dazzling smile, and close with "the fresh maker." Either way it goes, I doubt I'll ever be able to grow a beard.
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