Please don't misunderstand me. I love the mentally handicapped.
They're God's children - innocent, kind, and mostly unencumbered of pettiness and the neuroses that the rest of us have to put up with. Furthermore, the mentally handicapped tend to love me too. I've never been exactly sure why, but while my presence often reduces babies and teenage girls to tears; animals, older children, elderly men and those with mental handicaps tend to love me. So, I would never, ever dream of dishonoring or belittling someone with a cognitive disability. And that's not what I'm planning on doing here.
At least, I don't mean to. Really.
But allow me to back up. Due to a poorly planned nap, I made it to the gym uncharacteristically late yesterday. Arriving at work-out "rush hour," I considered myself lucky that there was exactly one treadmill available, allowing me to jump on and avoid an irksome wait. What I didn't notice right away was that the man running next to me was mentally handicapped.
Which, of course, is fine. Please remember, I love the mentally handicapped.
At my gym the wall in front of the treadmills is lined with mirrors, allowing me to stare at my sweaty self and and my sweaty treadmill neighbors, and since there's little else to do I tend to spend a fair amount of time sizing up those around me. As for my neighbor, there were no noticeable physical signs of his handicap, but right away I noticed his cumbersome gate and general awkwardness. My suspicions were soon further raised when I began to hear him sing a sloppily executed but soulfully felt rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" along with the discman he was clutching in his hand. After running along side him for a bit longer, I began to notice some of the less subtle signs. Nearly the entire time he ran his face remained lit up with a childish grin, and he would periodically raise a large hand to wave at random people who walked past him. I noticed that most of the people he waved to made solid attempts to avoid his gaze, and instead of waving back most shifted their eyes down to the floor, which saddened me. So when he eventually turned sideways to me and treated me to a huge, sweet grin and a friendly wave, I made a point of meeting his gaze reflected in the mirror and offered a big smile in return, thinking how nice it must be to innocently see the world as a place filled with friends and fun and smiles. It was in the middle of that thought when I glanced something else in the mirror, and my eyes drifted south of his face to notice that he had a...
um,
well, I noticed that he appeared to have a rather large, er...
What I mean to say is that it appeared that he had seemed to develop a unmistakable...
ah,
...oh, come on. Don't make me say it. You get the idea.
They're God's children - innocent, kind, and mostly unencumbered of pettiness and the neuroses that the rest of us have to put up with. Furthermore, the mentally handicapped tend to love me too. I've never been exactly sure why, but while my presence often reduces babies and teenage girls to tears; animals, older children, elderly men and those with mental handicaps tend to love me. So, I would never, ever dream of dishonoring or belittling someone with a cognitive disability. And that's not what I'm planning on doing here.
At least, I don't mean to. Really.
But allow me to back up. Due to a poorly planned nap, I made it to the gym uncharacteristically late yesterday. Arriving at work-out "rush hour," I considered myself lucky that there was exactly one treadmill available, allowing me to jump on and avoid an irksome wait. What I didn't notice right away was that the man running next to me was mentally handicapped.
Which, of course, is fine. Please remember, I love the mentally handicapped.
At my gym the wall in front of the treadmills is lined with mirrors, allowing me to stare at my sweaty self and and my sweaty treadmill neighbors, and since there's little else to do I tend to spend a fair amount of time sizing up those around me. As for my neighbor, there were no noticeable physical signs of his handicap, but right away I noticed his cumbersome gate and general awkwardness. My suspicions were soon further raised when I began to hear him sing a sloppily executed but soulfully felt rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" along with the discman he was clutching in his hand. After running along side him for a bit longer, I began to notice some of the less subtle signs. Nearly the entire time he ran his face remained lit up with a childish grin, and he would periodically raise a large hand to wave at random people who walked past him. I noticed that most of the people he waved to made solid attempts to avoid his gaze, and instead of waving back most shifted their eyes down to the floor, which saddened me. So when he eventually turned sideways to me and treated me to a huge, sweet grin and a friendly wave, I made a point of meeting his gaze reflected in the mirror and offered a big smile in return, thinking how nice it must be to innocently see the world as a place filled with friends and fun and smiles. It was in the middle of that thought when I glanced something else in the mirror, and my eyes drifted south of his face to notice that he had a...
um,
well, I noticed that he appeared to have a rather large, er...
What I mean to say is that it appeared that he had seemed to develop a unmistakable...
ah,
...oh, come on. Don't make me say it. You get the idea.
Labels: at the gym, reflexes beyond our control, shame
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