A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from my childhood friend Shawn. He went to the University of Georgia for undergrad, and is now in law school. He lives in the Gwinnett County area outside of Atlanta. The subject of the e-mail was “You’re nothing if not a complete asshole”, and this is his story.
Note: All of you people who don’t like profanity are not going to like this.

I say you’re an asshole for the following reasons. To begin with, 3 years ago I was in search of a gym and of getting serious about training. I was completely blown away and baffled by the bitchiness of UGA’s “gym”. The basketball team and the football team both have SEPARATE buildings with strength training equipment and yet the “gym” for 40,000+ other students – as you saw – was equipped with 2 power racks and is all of 300 square feet – most of which is cluttered with treadmills.
When I was searching for a decent gym – you called from a sailboat and teased me into thinking there was a glorious gym opening up nearby…You got me man.

Here Shawn references when my professor prank called him from Key West posing as a gym owner in Athens, Georgia. As I recall, he was not amused.

Next, last week, I went to work out only to find out that Gold’s has closed it””s doors. Instead of an apology for no notice there was merely a letter saying our memberships were transferred to Bodyplex FITNESS ADVENTURE in motherfucking Grayson.

I went anyway. I was nothing if not disappointed. I weigh 215 lbs at 6’2”””” today, and there is absolutely no fucking reason I should be the biggest guy in the gym. Ever. At any time. In Bodyplex “fitness adventure” there is ONE power rack, which I assume should suffice for anyone wanting to squat and press, but forget deadlifting. There are 2 benches, and there are several benches for free weight exercise – however there are no free barbells. I attempted to deadlift, which I was probably doing wrong, when I was asked by an employee to “not bang the weights”. On top of this, I was attempting to bench 245 for 3 sets of 5. After my second set – I returned to my bench and there was a guy in some sort of superhero complete body spandex doing step ups or quasi-lunges on my mother fucking bench which was loaded and had my belt, keys, and humility beside it. I’ve always wanted to be in a sober fight, so I stopped him and said, “Hey man what the fuck?” and pointed to my bench. He said “Oh my bad bro, didn’t know you were using it.” After hearing this I had a small seizure and went back to working out – only to be interrupted by another employee. This employee walked up, leaned over while I was on my 2nd rep of 245 and said “Excuse me sir, you are going to have to keep it down.” I think we both know I left directly after saying, “What a bad ass gym”.

I came home to realize I have no gym to go to. As I perused the internet to find a decent and affordable power rack along with barbells, plates, and a bench, I find your video fucking TOUTING your ideal gym. Fuck bodyplex, and more importantly fuck gold’s gym for being complete asses to their loyal patrons. And further fuck LA Fitness for having a pool — the last thing I want is to pay $45 a month to swim in a pool of fat older people’s taint sweat.

I don’t actually think you’re an asshole, just jealous of your workout facility. Enjoy it, the closest strength training facility here is in Duluth and appears to be totally fagged-out since their website advertises the “300 workout!!”.

I’m building my own fucking gym. I’m using Rip’s advice from the book…