So I’m going to make this short. I am currently nursing a pretty epic hangover thanks to some shenanigans last night. We decided to celebrate having gotten off of a Navy ship for the first time in weeks. We were out training to hunt pirates so, naturally, we decided the best way to understand them is to act like them and down a bottle and a half of rum. I usually don’t do this during the week. I’m usually a good little Marine and get up and drag my happy ass into the gym at obscenely early hours. Last night left me incapable of speech this morning other than moans and a glazed expression on my face that said, “Why, yes, Officer. I HAVE been drinking.” So as I sat on the bench press this morning willing myself not to throw up on my shoes, I looked around at all the tattooed, muscle-bound Recon Marines in the gym doing cock pushups (of which, as I understand, you only need to do one) and despaired on my level of fitness.

Now I’m no slouch. I’m in pretty great shape even by Marine standards but these guys are fucking animals. That’s the occupational hazard of working where I do. Your ego is constantly checked because this camp is home exclusively to special operations types and infantry Marines. There are no fatties running around. These guys are apex predators in top physical form. These are 21 year old Olympians who come into the gym wearing all black (That’s a special ops thing. They all do it.) and crank out sets of 20 muscle ups. I once saw a Marine doing pushups. No big deal. But then he brought his knees up to his chest and then thrust backwards and was suddenly in a free standing handstand and starting doing handstand pushups like that. I can do a few. Against a wall. But this freak of nature just rolls in and puts on a circus act in the middle of the gym like it’s no big thing while I stand there with my lanky limbs gawking at these Man-imals. The thing about it that drives me nuts, though, is that I see what these guys eat. They don’t have perfect diets. They lie around eating skittles and subsist almost solely on tobacco products and Monsters. And I’m over here wondering where my twenties went as I start tasting the Rum again during my set.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a nap to take.