Monday, March 21, 2005

My time on a treadmill with a pothead

I had a weird gym experience on Friday. It was time for some treadmill work and I generally look for one in front of a TV with either sports or the news on it. Oprah and Judge Judy are torture for me and just make exercise that much harder.

I found a treadmill in front of CNN and climbed aboard. I had just programmed the machine and had only been on for about fifteen seconds, when the guy next to me started talking. Generally, there is very little banter on the equipment; you either watch TV or listen to music on headsets.
Anyway, the guy says something about a neo-NAZI (Matt Hale?) being tried for killing a judge. I don’t think he was referring to the judge in the Midwest who just lost her husband and mother, so I am unclear here. I made a passing remark and kept watching the news.

Not even one minute into my time, I then informed me that he was just out of prison, serving 18 to 24 months for something to do with marijuana. I said nothing. The rest of my time on the treadmill was spent watching TV, not looking at him, saying as little as possible without pissing him off, and praying my time would be done.

I learned that he eats hemp bread, is fighting a judge about something, believes in legalized marijuana (I can’t argue on this one. I believe it should be a prescription drug just like any other. There has to be 10,000 drugs that are more dangerous that doctors can prescribe. Why not marijuana?), hates illegal immigrants who come to this country to work (at jobs that Americans do not want) and honk their car horns outside his door in the morning, and believes gun control is the root of all our problems (except for where pot is involved).

The gun issue led to my favorite remark. When noticing a story about a child that was kidnapped in Florida (Jessica Lunsford), he stated, “See, damn gun control. Look what happens?!”

Ok, I realize we are talking about a pothead who served time in prison, but am I to assume that if children were armed, and he thinks they should be apparently, child kidnappings could be stopped?

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