Sean, you stupid

“You’re actually pretty weak.” My personal trainer says to me. His name is Eric and he’s a blonde-haired, thin and toned marine biology student at Sacramento State University who is “just doing this to make some extra cash” he keeps telling me.

Eric wants to write me a food plan, but that comes after I decide if I’m going to buy some sessions from him. After every exercise, from a bench press to something called a rower, he tells me that if I’d tried to do this on my own I probably would have broken my back by now. I feel like I already have.

“You’ve clearly never been in a gym, which is why it’s imperative you buy training.” I don’t believe Eric knows what the word “imperative” means, and that saying it makes him uncomfortable. He says it in the rehearsed, from-a-book, please-don’t-call me-on-this sort of way that I spoke the line from Pippin, when I played King Charlemagne in our high school’s production. “Sometimes I don’t know if the fornicating I’m getting is worth the fornicating I’m getting.”

I’m not opposed to buying a trainer, but I’d prefer it be another fat person and probably a girl if that’s ok. Girls laugh at everything I say, especially if she’s black. Every time I meet a black woman and tell a joke they crack up saying, “Sean, you stupid.” Which I think is a compliment because it’s usually followed by a hug or a loving (but sometimes powerful) shove. I want that trainer and I’m not as afraid to take my shirt off to have my fat rolls pinched by a woman, a real woman. I don’t know why. I’m not as interested in impressing, or hiding myself from girls.

If I'm going to have a personal trainer, I want Queen Latifah.