You've Got Issues, too

every time i see someone jogging in place at a stop light, i think about masturbating.

freud would have a field-day with me, but it's not what you think.

sure, some of these early-morning athletes with their skin-tight clothing and healthy bouncing bodies may as well be jogging pornography, but that's not what i mean about those jogging in place.

let me start it this way: most wishnacks grew up runners. be it sprinters or long-distance, we were trained to run. i'm not sure if it was with the idea that every sport required speed or if it was simply that running was the only form of exercise that costs nothing to practice. whatever the reason, we ran every other day during the summer and we would celebrate our birthdays by seeing if we could beat our mile-time from the year before.

i don't think any of us enjoyed running but i don't think any of us had much of a say in the matter. i remember once having my calculator-watch taken away from me because i couldn't beat my 440 yd dash record and my dad believe i wasn't trying my hardest and, therefore, was not mature enough for said wristwatch.

i also remember the time when my dad (a science teacher) decided that the amount of sweat we were producing during running was depleting our bodies' salt supply and that it would be best we stopped drinking regular water from our water bottles. he filled our bottles with lukewarm salt-water and i ended up fainting.

but back to my point: masturbation.

my dad largely spent his evenings in a lawn chair, eating tuperwared food while yelling, "PICK YOUR KNEES UP" or "USE YOUR ARMS" at the four of us tiny running kids. he would have us run miles at a time, sometimes with ankle-weights and sometimes carrying weights in our hands-- if your arms can't move as fast as your legs there's no point in any of it.

and we'd always have the warm-down or the cool-off: that pathetic lap you're meant to run after the miles you've already run. the purpose of this is to allow your heart the chance to slow itself down gradually rather than immediately. running miles and coming to a sudden and complete stop can confuse your heart.

these joggers we see jogging in place at stop lights are doing exactly what any serious jogger should be doing: keeping their heart-rate steady and unconfused. you should never jog up to a stop light and just stop-- your heart would continue to beat as if you were exercising and your blood pressure will raise because the pumping isn't necessary.

every time i see one of these joggers executing this tactic, i think of my dad and then i think of how close to puberty i was when he passed away and what an awkward experience it would've been to go through with him alive.

i can imagine him lecturing, "you really shouldn't just jerk off, stop, and collapse on your bed-- it's bad for your heart. you need to do a cool-off and let your heart beat gradually drop."

or, "you could really injure yourself if you don't do stretches before you masturbate-- especially when the weather is cold and your joints are stiffened."

"USE YOUR ARMS!"

the other night, i had a dream that i had been very "out of practice" and prematurely ejaculated onto a girl's stomach. and the only thing worse than that was that directly after it happened, my dad appeared shouting, "FALSE START! FALSE START, GET BACK IN POSITION!"

i told you: freud would have a field-day.