Ajax is in Bad Shape

It is 12:00 am on the button as I type this. I’ll be posting it later, so I guess it doesn’t matter when I type it, or post it for that matter. Needless to say, I will be posting it. I will digress to discuss this phrase, “needless to say.” I heard a doosie today. I love when people misuse this phrase. Before that though, just the phrase itself is pretty ridiculous, the mime of literary idioms if you will. “If you will” is another good one, maybe it can be the clown car gag of literary idioms. Basically “if you will” is just for people who want to make their writing sound snootier, which is why I use it. But “needless to say,” well, if it was really unnecessary to be said, then why are you saying it? It is either an affront to the intelligence of the audience, as in, “I shouldn’t need to say this, but I did notice your knuckles dragging while you approached me, so…” or it falls into the category of trying to enhance the appeal of your communication. I can’t just say, “The kids went crazy after the football game and three of them wound up being arrested.” I’d have to say “The kids went crazy after the football game and, needless to say, three of them wound up being arrested.” That doesn’t really seem “enhanced.” I guess I’m going to change my statement to “the only reason to use ‘needless to say’ is to imply that your audience is in the cognitive slow lane.” There is intrinsic laughability in the phrase being used at any time, but the best is when it is used improperly, such as, “well, the dog has been chewing up everything in sight, and I mean EVERYTHING. Then add in the attack on the mailman, and they say that once a dog tastes human blood, well…you know. So when the neighbor asked if I’d watch their 2-year-old, I was pretty nervous. Needless to say, everything was fine.” Needless to say?! No, I think it was very needful to say. If you are leading up to a certain conclusion you can’t just throw in a needless to say and then turn the story around, it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I heard a good one of those kinds today and was just thinking about it a little.
End of the digression. It is midnight. Recently my roommates and I have been doing a lot of talking about getting some exercise going. As the title states, Ajax is in bad shape. This goes back to my joke about trying to save some money, you know, tightening the belt, so I quit going to the gym. Well, my pants are getting tighter, just a bit. What can you do when Ben and Jerry’s is on sale for $2.30 a pint. I’d be wrong not to buy several. And then Oreo cookies, well, you gotta have those! Needless to say (checkmate!), I need to get back to the gym. This is the way our conversations have been going lately. It got really funny yesterday when one of my roommates was talking to a mutual friend and then I had dinner with her last night and I was talking about my plan to exercise again and she said that my roommate had just been talking about that too. It was funny to me and him anyway. I don’t think that is proper grammar. I’m not worried about grammar though, I’m worried about my cholesterol and this little stomacher I’ve got developing. If this was 1770’s Philadelphia it wouldn’t be a problem. You know the rest. You see, I want to develop a Brad Pitt type appearance. He’s a good looking fellow. Right now I’m on a young-Steve-Buscemi plateau. Nothing against Buscemi, he’s a funny guy, but he’s no Brad Pitt. Ben and Jerry aren’t going to help me get to where I’d like to be, I know that, yet I continue to sit all day and eat ice cream. Until tonight. My roommates decided to start running. They’ve done their run once so far and invited me tonight. Usually I’m in bed earlier and get up earlier, but lately I’ve been letting that schedule slip back. When they said run at 11:30 pm, I said OK.
Here is the run: about 2 blocks to the gas station to buy soda and energy drinks (The energy drinks are so they can stay up all night to watch the World Cup broadcast from South Africa). Let me tell you, or, needless to say, it was pretty funny that we ran for about 4 minutes and then they bought 40 oz. sodas. I bought a Gatorade. I at least wanted to look like I was trying. We get out of the store and start jogging again, but we couldn’t stop laughing. There we were - me with a Gatorade, each of them with a 40 oz. soda and one with a bag of energy drinks. Shuffling/jogging along, at break-neck speeds…yeah. It must have been some sight for the passing motorists: three young guys in exercise apparel, jogging along with huge soda cups in hand. Kind of like the folks ordering a diet soda at KFC (I know, diet soda is blah blah blah and just because blah blah blah. Whatever, it’s an easy joke to make, so I made it. You laughed, even if only slightly, and even if only subconsciously).
I don’t know if what I’ve typed here has done justice to the experience I just had, but it had to be said. Our little expedition took all of 20 minutes and covered 4 blocks. The first thing I did after getting back to the apartment? Eat a cookie. A tragic tale? Perhaps, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. In my defense, it was a peanut butter cookie; I hear protein is a good to eat after exercising. There’s still protein in peanut butter cookies, right?