13 Days of Darkness Part 9 – Life, Death, And Kettlebells In Monterey

Monterey is beautiful, but like the little towns in David Lynch’s films, there are dark, sinister forces roiling beneath the idyllic surface.  The faint scent of savagery, menace, and insanity blow hither and thither on the salty sea air.

This is my destiny...remember me fondly...

I was minding my own business on Monday afternoon, standing in a sunbeam in the field across the street from my hotel. I was doing a hard workout with two kettlebells and having the time of my life.  Things were so pleasant that I almost expected a baby deer to run out of the trees and do a tap dance just for me.

Suddenly, someone was yelling at me.

“Dude!  Move!”

I looked around.  Three guys in really tight shirts were standing about fifty feet away.  My vision is not great, but I sensed that the tips of their hair were frosted.  Never a good sign.  I could also tell that they were stuffed into their clothes like sausages. Oh, and there was a girl in short shorts with them.  That’s probably why these gents were feeling so ferocious.

It was four to one.  Hopelessly outnumbered…

So this was my life…did I do so badly?

“What?” I yelled, setting down the kettlebells.

They started waving their arms and shouting what sounded like, “Four!  Four!”

Four?  What the crap?  Four what?

“All right, man!  You asked for it!”  Something was flying through the air towards me.  I finally realized what was going on.  I was in the middle of a game of frisbee golf.  I was doing my thing near one of the holes–a chain link bucket.

A New Definition Of Terror

Now another of the fussy little guys was yelling about something.  He was very upset.  It was probably because the girl had folded her arms and was jabbering about something.  He couldn’t let this outrage stand.

“Dude!  Get out of our way!” Now they were all flapping their arms so hard I thought they might zoom into the sky.  Monterey was displaying its terrifying, frost-tipped underbelly.

I wondered why I wasn’t terrified.  Then it hit me: I’m not the toughest guy in the world.  I was really trying to be intimidated, but I couldn’t figure out how to feel scared of miniature frisbees  Especially not when I’m 20 minutes into throwing heavy kettlebells around. Maybe I shouldn’t have started to work out.  Then I would have been exhibiting an appropriate level of knee-knocking quakery.

I put the bells down and yelled, “Play through!”  I went back to work.  If I am to die today, I will die upright, on my own terms, doing kettlebell snatch and press ladders.

Now they were seriously agitated.  As they shrieked and fidgeted, I noticed that they stayed well within earshot, but well out of headlock range.

The field was huge.  If they were accurate enough to hit me with their frisbees on the first toss, then they would have finished their game much sooner after hitting nine straight holes in one.

Patient Zero

If you’re reading this, I’m still alive, if you can call this living.  I see their frail frames and chilling Frisbees every time I close my eyes.  I escaped their wrath and their egos and their frosted tips and their too-small shirts.

But they infected me with something.  There must have been some sort of toxin on one of their toys.  Who knows what I’m becoming?  Even now, my hand strays to my head every couple of minutes, wondering if it is slowly turning blond.

This shirt…this shirt feels so tight…can’t brea…

Josh

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Tagged as: articles, humor, kettlebells