Corky wanna fight.

There is a mentally handicapped kid at my gym who thinks I'm an MMA fighter. Every time he sees me he makes this scowling face, goes into this psuedo-boxer-like pose and says to me, "gonna make it hurt!" I don't follow MMA so I don't know if that is a catchphrase or slogan they use there, but it's unsettling to have this special needs dude pointing at me from across the gym and then shadow boxing like we're fighting. Am I his inspiration? Is this special needs kid going to tackle me while I'm working out and start pummeling me with his curious monkey strength? It's weird. Perhaps he thinks I'm a fighter and it's all just a matter of mistaken identification. I hope so. But what happens when he finds out I'm not this guy? He could get mad and start hitting me and blaming me for his mistake. They are strong too, like... monkey strong.

I'm not sure what the laws are about these things but should mentally challenged people even be working out in gyms? Aren't they already strong enough? I'm not sure if you have ever had to restrain one of these guys when they were having an "episode" but these guys are outrageously strong. It baffles me that we as a society haven't figured out a way to benefit from their inhuman power. He could have them turn turbines which create electricity, or have them hold up falling buildings while we repair them. Eventually someone is going to figure it out and start hiring them as bouncers. If they didn't have such short attention spans you could hire them in slaughter houses to punch the cows to death.You just have to keep telling them the cows are bad.

My gym is filled with mostly older people who live next door to the gym and have nothing else to do with their day. Some of them come into the gym, pull chairs onto the basketball court and shoot baskets while sitting in those comfy chairs. A few of them just watch TV and don't work out at all. The treadmills and stationary bikes are filled with people who have the machines set at level ONE or just over one mile every two hours. The weight machines look like they are torturing these elderly people who are trying to either figure out how to get in them or out of them without hurting themselves. Our pool is a scene out of Cocoon - pre-Alien invasion. It's old people "walking" in the pool - not even swimming. Which pisses me off because they won't move out of the lane if you want to swim laps.

All of the college children have all gone away, which is nice. So have the younger, more youthful twenty and early thirty year olds. Left in the gym is a bunch of men and women in their forties and fifties all trying to fight off diabetes or erectile dysfunction. And then there's ten or twenty real hardcore gym freaks who have muscles to spare and have grown so large they have nothing else to do with their lives other than feed those muscles. They are there for hours every day and have no body fat or untanned skin. All of their shirts advertise gyms they have worked out in. Each one has a picture of a man who looks just like they do, holding or lifting a barbell which has been bent from the immense weight on either end of the barbell.

There is a Karate and a Judo class at the gym and both of them are filled. None of the participants are young people or people who would ever have to worry about using Judo or Karate in a real life scenario but they all take it very seriously. I... am not in either class. Because I am not a fighter.

I have a few note-worthy tattoos. Nothing spooky. I have very short buzzed hair and a beard. There are dark bags under my eyes, but I'm smiling and very cordial with everyone at the gym. Even the elderly walrusi who refuse to walk in their own lanes at the pool, I'm nice to them too. So where does this kid get the impression that I'm an MMA fighter? Or is all of this his way of challenging me to a fight? How do I fight a special needs kid without looking like a douche bag? This is just lose-lose. I can't just go up and hit the guy. What would people think if they saw me just punching this kid? I bet the whole entire Karate class would come up and start using me as target practice. I would say the same for the Judo class but I think they just roll you over a bunch of times and bore you to death.

I'm pretty sure this kid can't swim so I know I would be safe if I can get to the water. Of course, he could just ride one of the old "water walker" people out to me and then start punching me in the head. Whatever happens, if you don't hear from me for a while know that one of the options could be this special needs kid from my gym who looks like a shorter, younger, Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I thought about placing pudding cups around the gym, like an Easter egg hunt, to distract him for the few hours I'm there, But here's no guarantee that the elderly people wouldn't find them and eat them before he finds them all. You see the dilemma I'm in???!!!

You can't punch metally handicapped kids. I checked. It's illegal.

There is a video called "Corky fight the power" - Look it up. Dangerous stuff.