So this just happened at the gym.

I’m sitting on the leg extension machine, resting between sets, when a guy in completely random street clothes strolls up with a can of oil and rubber gloves like he’s about to perform outpatient surgery. He looks right at me and says, “Do you mind if I oil it?”

I blink. My brain blue‑screens. Did he really just say that out loud? I’m suspended in time trying to decide if this is a translation issue or the boldest public innuendo ever attempted. After a quick once‑over, he seems harmless enough, so I nod — which, in hindsight, was not my strongest decision.

This machine has two vertical rods the weight stack slides on. I don’t know what I expected, but it was not this: he squirts a generous amount of oil onto his gloved hand, then snakes that lubed hand into the machine and starts rubbing one metal rod. Up and down. Up. And. Down. Several… committed strokes.

I look away, uncomfortably, to give him privacy with his rod. Because apparently that’s who I am now.

After what I assume is an appropriate amount of time for… whatever this is… I glance back. He is re‑lubing his hand. He is preparing for round two. On the other rod.

I cannot. I slide out of the machine like my soul is evacuating my body and turn to face literally any other direction.

It hits me — I am the lone witness to the most unhinged, SNL sketch moment of my gym career. No one else is seeing this. Not a single soul. This is a you‑had‑to‑be‑there story, except no one was there but me.

I’m biting my lips to keep from laughing, scanning the floor for someone, anyone, to validate this fever dream. Nothing.

He finishes, wipes his hands, and just… moves on. Walks to the next machine, chats with the person on it, and proceeds to oil their rods too.

I’m dead.