My workout partner extraordinaire John Passarella has always claimed to be a first class a-hole magnet, and today he proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt.  In fact, we decided his superhero name should be A-hole Magneto because these encounters with idiots give him special powers.  Or….he gets so mad that he starts to lift super-human amounts of weight.

Today we were training arms and headed to the preacher bench to do some bicep curls.  The gym had just gotten a new cambered (bent) bar for this bench which we loved.  However, when we arrived at the bench there was a gym bag laying next to it and weights on the bar.  We asked the somewhat burly hispanic man standing nearby if this was his bag, and he said yes he was using the bench.  When John asked him how many sets he had left with the bar and bench, the man said "oh, a whole lot, many sets."  Then he suggested we use the other bar on the other bench, but it's truly skinny and horrible.

This is when things got dicey.  

John says "well we like this bar and would like to use it" then the man says "Well, you don't own the gym."  Then he follows up with the zinger "I guess you'll just have to go buy your own bar."

Apparently this man had decided that whatever part of the gym he wanted to use had become his own personal property.  A-hole Magneto turned and walked away in a huff, but I said to the man "Hey, you have to share.  We all have to share in the gym."

We noticed that this man had claimed an entire section of the free weight area as his personal territory.  He was using 10 dumbbells, two benches, two bars with weights on them, a pad and an ab wheel, plus his gym bag was in the middle of it (illegal .)   And he was "using" all of this at one time.

So we used a lesser bar and John began his sets of superhuman strength, fueled by his disgust of this man's behavior.  This is, quite literally, the worst we've ever encountered.  So we did our sets while we watched this man prance around the gym "bowed out" like he was huge (which he was not, nor was his belly attractive) and then we watched him perform sets with terrible form.

Rather than launching here into a tirade about people's sense of entitlement and self-absorption, I'll just say that this is not the way the gym works, or even the way the world works.  I pity this man if we encounter him the next time in a similar circumstance, as A-hole Magneto will not be as diplomatic or show such self-control.  And I, his loyal sidekick, hope to have my phone there to record this a-hole getting his much deserved comeuppance.