Initiation

The maintenance man at my gym calls me “kiddo” and “buddy”: “Hey kiddo, how’s it going?”, “Hiya, buddy.” I know that sometimes I am paranoid that people think that I am 15 years old, but clearly he does not think I am 31. He reminds me of my dad, who still calls his 40 year old co-workers “kids”. So maybe the maintenance guy actually knows that I am 31 but is sympathetic to the fact that he is 20 years older. Or maybe, and here’s where my paranoia settles in, maybe he feels bad for me because he sees me at the gym every day: in the middle of the day. I imagine he wonders if I am lonely and unemployed and have an unhealthy self-perception of my body since I am at the gym so much more often than the 9-5ers. When I see him now, I can hear his thoughts: “Here comes the compulsive one. She doesn’t really need to lose weight. But she’s trying so hard. She’s been here for three years and hasn’t lost a pound. Actually, the winter hasn’t treated her well.” Little does he know that he should feel bad because his pre-occupation with my lifestyle has interfered with his ability to satisfactorily perform his maintenance work at the gym. Well, it may not be solely his job but work with me...

His gym attacked my leg with fungus.

About 3 weeks ago, I noticed a rash on my inner left thigh. Thinking it was excema, or some sort of allergic reaction, I applied hydrocortisone cream hoping it would clear up. After a few days, it didn’t change. It was incredibly itchy and took up an area about the size of my palm. I showed it to Chris and his mouth watered as he said, “I think you have poison ivy.” Chris is extremely allergic to poison ivy and was slightly disgusted with me. I tried convincing him that I had been nowhere near a climate that harbored plant life in March. He was skeptical. He pointed at the bumps without touching me (“now, don’t move, I don’t want to touch it”) and shook his head with disappointment.

A few days later, I happened to have my annual OB/GYN exam and decided that I could just ask her about the rash instead of making a separate appointment with my primary care doctor. It was itchy, it was mysterious, and I was far more interested in getting it checked out than my reproductive organs. Sitting in the pre-exam one-on-one consultation with the doctor, the OB/GYN asked me if “there was anything else” and I told her about this “weird rash thing on my leg”. So she said would take a look when she performed her exam.

She left the room and I changed into the paper outfit (“front open”). When she returned, she invited me to place my heels up into the stirrups. Then, with her head between my legs, she looked at my left leg and I could feel her hands applying pressure to my skin. She made a couple incoherent sounds and then turned on the light, at which point she said:

“OH! I know what this is. You have pets.”

At that moment I panicked and tried to respond calmly, “Um, nope. No pets.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hmmmm. Well, it’s fungus.”

I sighed, groaned , rolled my eyes and she gently reprimanded me by saying, “oh, there is no reason to be upset. We live in New York City. We share the same germs. We live all over each other.”

I had a surge of conflicting thoughts:

1. So, now I am officially a New Yorker because I have a mysterious fungus growing on my leg? Is this like an initiation to a collegiate sportsteam? I would rather have a party thrown in my honor now that I was a true New Yorker.

2. Well, it’s not meningitis. But, it sounds like that will come in my next stage of being a New Yorker. And I shouldn’t panic.

3. Bird Flu. It’s a just a matter of time. I need to store up on dry goods and an escape route from this island.

But the overwhelming question mark floating through my brain was: “Where did I get this?” I always wear pants at the gym, so her suggestion that I got it on the bike didn’t really make sense. She was perplexed as well. I asked her if I could have gotten it from a toilet at the gym and she said, “No, that’s not likely.” She patted my right leg and said, “I’m surprised you don’t have it on this leg.” She was not concerned about the origin of the fungus, but I was obsessed with it.

By that night, I was sitting on the couch grimacing from the sting of the prescription cream as I chased my prescription steroid with a tall glass of water.

So maintenance man gave me fungus.

Unless it was homeless man.

Recently Chris and I were riding on our subway line (the F train) from Manhattan to Brooklyn. It was a packed train, standing room only at 9pm on a Thursday. We were standing toward the back of our car and could see into the subway car behind us. Our view was priceless: a homeless man, taking up five seats with his body (torso on two, legs outstretched on three). He had the zipper to the crotch of his pants undone and had his right hand conveniently placed inside the opening. One of his laceless combat boots was about three feet from the seats, in the middle of the aisle, and ten minutes later, the other fell off and landed close by. At each subway stop between 14^th Street and 7^th Avenue, approximately eight people would jump out his subway car and leap into ours. No wonder there was standing room only. By the time we reached the first stop in Brooklyn, the folks in our car were asking me and Chris (the people with a view through the back window) for a play-by-play:

“Oh, ok. Now, he’s switching hands. No….wait. Both hands. Both hands are down the pants!”

“Man! It stunk so bad in there. Still one shoe off?

“No, both shoes on floor.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine how those people are still standing in there.”

A transplant passenger from that car was standing near us and I could see him pursing his lips, squinting his eyes, scraping his tongue with his teeth, stretching out kinks in his neck by rolling his head around. It was like he had been attacked by a skunk.

So, here I am three weeks later wondering how I caught that homeless man’s fungus. Evidently, I shouldn’t worry about it though.

We live all over each other.