Local Business
by Larry St. James, Our Town Staff
Muscle Man Muscles into Muscle Town, USA
A new gymnasium, Xtreme Basic Fitness for Men and Women, is set to open this Monday, April 16th. The first fifty Chesterfield Ridge citizens (with proper documentation of course) will receive a free logo key chain/plunger.
The gym boasts over fifty pieces of exercise machinery as well as various working toilets. Owner Tom Alford says, "This gym is going to have working toilets." Buff!
Alford's journey from Chesterfield Ridge was not a straight shot (sorry Euclid!), but rather a curvy one that swooped down and around a bit, then sort of up and right against a light tail wind. He began, he says, selling toilets door to door hoping to make enough money to one day open up his own library. "The work was hard, but dragging all those toilets around really built up my lower back and quads." The only problem as luck would have it, was that while his "core" was being built, the rest of his body was wilting.
"Yeah, fifty percent of my body weight at that point came from my lower back muscles and my enormously developed quadriceps."
But thanks to the "suitable" work of a team of carney doctors, Alford was able to make a speedy recovery and, on the advice of a former linguistics professor, decided to buff up the rest of his body. Soon he was on the road to winning various pageants and competitions based around awarding musculature (sorry, no handi-"capables" need apply). One month later, Alford had won nearly every body building award in his small, central Pennsylvania town.
The only downside of his rehabilitation was that it left his bladder no larger than a baby's fist. "I gotsta pee a lot," says Frank Alford doing a spot-on imitation of his physically superior older brother. The result is over seventy working toilets scattered throughout the new gymnasium.
From his summit, there was only one place left to go, back down to the masses that made him great. Like so many others in his position, he opened up his first gym, run out of his parents living room. While the operation was indeed amateur, Alford learned a lot about his parents' allergies to exercise machinery.
And so it was that not even two weeks after the success of his first grand opening, both of his parents fell into a deep coma, one that the two shared due to their Depression-era frugality. "I felt I needed a change at that point," says Alford. "Mom and Pop getting sick really pushed me to the limit and I knew I had to take m
y gift of exercise to a major city like Chesterfield Ridge."
And what of his new gym's nifty nom? "I'm illiterate," cries Alford.
Glad to have you, Mr. Alford! Make yourself at our home!
Xtreme Basic Fitness for Men and Women will be open to the general public minus their loved ones. Membership fees are $50 for two weeks, after which point one must reapply through the board of trustees. Fitness classes are five rupees, and toilet use is strictly unlimited.
