Hot Dog Contests and Gyms Don’t Mix
The Nathan’s Famous Hotdog Eating Contest took place on Coney Island this past weekend. Once again, hot dog eating legend Takeru Kobayashi, a one-hundred-and-twenty-eight pound Japanese man with multi-shaded orange hair that I suspect may be a side effect of prolonged hot dog juice poisoning, lost the contest to Joey Chestnut, the two-hundred-and-ten pound defending champion. The two men tied during the initial, ten minute contest, both ingesting fifty-nine hot dogs in the most disgusting manner imaginable. Chesnut triumphed in an overtime, beating Kobayashi by seven seconds in a “sudden death,” five hot dog speed-eat.
Which is why I’m avoiding the gym for a week, until all threat of CNN video recaps of this event has passed.
“That has got to be,” says my friend Jane, “the lamest excuse you have ever given for not exercising.”
“Not true,” I protest. “My strawberry picking wrist injury was lamer.”
Besides, I think but do not say, it’s none of Jane’s business whether I go to the gym. The only reason she is nagging me to go to the gym is because she needs someone to mother, now that her sons are away at summer camp.
When Jane’s sons go to summer camp, two bad things happen. First, the boys hone their archery skills. Second, Jane’s mothering instincts lose their accustomed outlet and she focuses on me. She becomes hyper aware of my fashion faux pas, bad health habits and faulty table manners. This scrutiny makes me edgy. I start screening my phone calls and making up lame excuses.
My hot dog contest aversion, however, is no made-up excuse to avoid the gym. It’s a serious problem for me. I’m repulsed by the idea of witnessing repeated news cycle re-plays of the Kobayashi-Chestnut gorge fest. I fear the psychological impact. First I’d start to smell hotdogs. Then I’d start to taste hot dogs. Then, through the miracle of psychosomatic suggestion, I’d gain five pounds.
I have tried to explain this aversion to Jane, but she’s unsympathetic. She says that I don’t have to watch TV at the gym. And even if I do watch TV, Jane argues, I have other viewing options than CNN.
What Jane fails to understand is that TV is a mandatory part of my gym routine. TV distracts me from the fact that I loathe formal exercise. It prevents my brain from doing what it typically does when exposed to extreme boredom: generating inappropriate and often hostile thoughts that scurry around my head like over-caffeinated ferrets.
For example, in the absence of TV, I start to fixate on the bulgy armed people over in the gym’s weightlifting area. Specifically, I notice how they grunt. They don’t grunt discreetly, in a way that I might excuse as an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of lifting heavy things. No. They grunt for the sake of grunting. They grunt in a needlessly loud, self-congratulatory manner that increases in frequency whenever women walk by.
TV helps me to ignore these people, and anyone else who annoys me. The gym offers three different channel options. The first is the TNT station. It’s usually playing “Law and Order.” This is a nonstarter for me because, as a former lawyer, I can’t help but nitpick every little fake detail. I start snorting derisively and then weightlifters complain.
The second viewing option is the Tennis Channel. This also is no good, because it’s either showing a tennis match (bo-ring) or even worse, airing its new reality program, “No Strings,” described in a marketing package as, “an intimate look at the glamorous lifestyles of professional tennis players off the court.” Unfortunately, professional tennis players’ “glamorous lifestyles” are depressing. They hang out in hotel rooms, caress their medals, admire their own photographs and have extended, obsessive conversations with their trainers about whether they should eat chicken or fish as their meal prior to the next big match. I can only watch so much of “No Strings” before I risk falling asleep.
That leaves the third option, CNN. It’s not ideal, but I appreciate the frequent updates on unfolding world tragedies, especially when they’re interspersed with upbeat gardening tips and zoo animal antics. I also enjoy the popular culture primer I receive via the commercials. For example, my current favorite commercial features a slender blonde woman who boasts of her success with a weight loss plan and kicks a photo of a heavier version of herself from the screen. I’m fascinated by the self-hatingly creepy vibe.
But this week, video coverage of Nathans’ Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest is on the loose. So I must stay away.
I explain all this to Jane. “It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” she says.
I tap my forehead. “The overcaffeinated ferrets,” I tell her, “never rest.”
Jane sighs. “Would you at least tuck your shirt in? And please, stand up straight – you’re slouching.”
I hate summer camp.