elitefts™ Sunday Edition
While at the UGSS at Orlando Barbell, Dave was told that if he asked for a roll of toilet paper at Samson Barbell, there was a chance all his shit would get torched in a wheelbarrow. What does this even mean?
In my ten years of owning a gym, I've only had to kick out one guy. There have been others who have come and gone, asked to return, and weren't allowed, but only one has been asked to leave. I want to point out that I don't charge anything at my place. There aren't any membership fees or team dues. I occasionally ask for help when I'm replacing something, but that's rare. I'm saying all this so that I can set up the following story without sounding like a complete jack ass.
I had a guy in my gym who tested my patience to the complete max for almost the entire eighteen months that he was a member. I could go on and on, but that would be pointless. The guy was a pain and needed to leave. It wasn't just me either. He was a problem for everyone. He was dangerous as well. Missed spots and incorrectly loaded bars were regular occurrences.
When it was time for him to go because I couldn’t take a minute more of it, I asked him to get his stuff and leave, which he did without much resistance. I think he knew it was coming. A few weeks later, a mutual friend came to visit and train. While he was there, he delivered a letter from the guy I had kicked out. In the letter, the ex-member asked me to give our friend a few things that he had left behind.
Let me pause here and tell a side story. My gym is at my home in a rural area, so we piss outside. However, if someone needs my restroom, they're welcome to use it. This is something that rarely happens. I think most people would rather not because they have more respect for my family than to use it for anything but an absolute emergency. Not this guy though. I let him use it one time and it became an everyday occurrence. One time he used it twice in one training session. I finally had had enough and told him that he couldn't use it any more. I told him to bring some toilet paper and hit the woods if he had that little control of himself. So he did.
Now back to the main story. One of the things this guy left behind was a partial roll of toilet paper. It was on his list of things to be returned. Maybe I reacted harshly, but this didn't sit well with me. This guy had trained at my house for eighteen months without a penny asked of him and he was asking me to return a partial roll of toilet paper. When I read it, I said nothing. Our mutual friend was embarrassed. You could see it in his face.
I walked out to fetch a few things that I would need—gas, a wheelbarrow, and a lighter. When I returned, I gathered the things that he wanted—a set of blocks that he put his feet on to bench, a set of wrist wraps (as I remember), and a partial roll of toilet paper.
Everything went into the wheelbarrow except for the toilet paper. I would need that. I used the gas to soak everything and then I lit the toilet paper on fire and tossed it in the wheelbarrow. I told our friend that when it was finished burning, he could return anything that was left.
I know how this sounds, but I was offended that a guy who trained for free for so long would ask for such an insignificant thing to be returned. I could lie and tell you that it didn’t make me feel better, but it did. I feel like I should give you the “moral of the story” now, but there isn’t one.
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