Things being as they were, when it became clear COVID would close the gym, I started hunting something new to punch. A heavy bag, I should say, besides being a fit way for any sentient being to respond to the world, aids your average septuagenarian’s anaerobic condition, hand-eye co-ordination, and balance – so’s he don’t fall on his nose when going down the hall for the night squirt. And it squares shoulders and bounces steps as he goes about the impossible-to-ignore decreasing days. I took it up following heart surgery, adhering to Dr. Fleur’s directive, “You can hit anything that doesn’t hit back,” even when provoked by scoundrels and blackguards passing within six-feet, unmasked.
I found a “pre-owned” one on E-Bay at an irresistible price, but it turned out, upon arrival, to be a “speed reflex” bag, which anyone who knew such a thing existed would have figured from its picture, but I believed it to be simply a small bag that weighed a lot. Which made sense. Why would you need six-feet of something when you only smacked a portion. It seemed ecologically sound, requiring fewer murdered cows to make and occupying less landfill when trashed. The damn thing came without instructions, so I had no idea before putting it together that, without pouring cement into the bottom, it would fly across the room like Bluto when swatted by a spinach-enhanced Popeye.
Not that instructions would have made a difference. I did not know cement from Shinola and probably could not have got it in place without ensnaring a foot. I did have, however, an embarrassing stock of cartons of unsold copies of my first novel, within which I could corral my acquisition instead. They were easier to remove than cement too, which proved fortunate because the bag sat atop a thin pole, connected to the aforementioned base by bolts – or maybe they are screws – or maybe even nuts – which I couldn’t tighten enough, even with wrench or pliers, to prevent, every couple rounds, having to re-afix them or risk, while the base remained pinioned, pole and bag soaring off without it.
As my friend and fellow FOTM contributor Budd says, “The term ‘Jewish handyman’ is an oxymoron.” (Or as our landsman Arthur put it, “Leave it for the super.”)
I resumed my quest.
When it comes to shopping, I can be obsessive. I had been trained by a mother who hoarded Blue Stamps to the extent that, when Food Fair called the game, she could have papered the den, and who clipped pennies-off coupons from the Sunday Inquirer long after reaching a store for her became more daunting than Perry the pole. My weighing styles and prices can put at risk everything from my morning meditation to an evening’s sleep. I may forget shampoo in showers. I may leave burners on at meals. When I wasn’t checking the news, hoping to hear a stroke had turned Trump into a turnip, I scouted on-line offerings.
Finally, Title Boxing, my go-to source of all-things pugilistic – shoes, gloves, knuckle-wraps – put a sixty-pounder on sale for $99.99. Only since Dr. Fleur didn’t want me lifting over twenty, I couldn’t see (a) how I’d get it in the house and (b), if I did, how I’d hang it from a ceiling. That was a two-man job, and, to keep stranger-free, we’d even laid off our cleaning lady, who, come to think of it probably couldn’t’ve hefted her required forty anyway.
“I guess I’ll have to wait for you to discount a stand-up bag,” I told Ms. Live Chat.
“Oh, they rarely go on sale,” she said enticingly. “If ever,” she added, in case I’d missed the implication. “But here’s a code which will save you twenty-percent.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said.
But Title’s stander-uppers started at $300. Plus Customer Reviews made it sound like you needed an MIT degree to put it together. I consider changing a light bulb without electrocution a triumph, and one of these fellows had attached handles in order to grip his.
The excitement of the challenge and increasing need for something upon which to unleash frustration overcame my pre-existing “Spawn-of-Satan” antipathy toward Amazon. It tempted, Eve-like, with an all-agreed easy-to-assemble model that, after knocking off from its existing discount what I got for receiving a no-fee credit card (which I swore to never use), came to less than (non-designer) sneakers.
It arrived in two boxes. I pointed out to the UPS driver, he’d meet fewer steps detouring to the basement than climbing to the front door – and tipped him $20.
The reviewers had said the base’s suction cups would stick to a clean floor, but though I swept and dusted and 409’d, they treated mine like cue balls green felt. I thought adding the weight of the bag would do it. I positioned it. I inserted the screw/bolt/thingies and tightened. I jabbed lightly – and it wobbled like I was Sonny Liston. That’s when I found its instructions. I needed fifty pounds of sand.
You know about sand? Turns out there are two kinds. You have your “Sand”; then you have your “Play Sand,” which is not, as you might think, imitation sand but sand to play in. It is finer grained and cleaner than “Sand” sand, and, surprisingly, like it costs to coarsen and cruddy up the stuff, comes at a tenth the price. Recalling the answer to the riddle, “What weighs more fifty-pounds of iron or fifty-pounds of feathers,” and my momma not having raised no fools or profligates, my choice was clear. Since both varieties come only in fifty-pound sacks, and no one delivers either, I had ACE Hardware put my grit in the Mustang’s trunk.
Okay, fifty-pounds, and a guy who can’t lift twenty. Easier to solve than getting the fox, the chicken, and the grain across the river in the single-passenger rowboat. I’d secured from ACE matching red plastic bucket, red plastic scoop, and red plastic funnel and, with minimal spillage at either end, after several bend-at-the-knees trips from garage to basement, I had scooped sand from sack into bucket and from bucket through funnel into hole in base. I again positioned the bag. I again inserted and tightened. I stepped back to admire my handiwork, thrust hands into pockets – and met the rubber stopper that was to seal the cavity I’d just covered.
What were the chances, I asked myself, with the bag above it, sand would spill out the hole? On the other hand, if chances were zero, why did the stopper exist? This was not an existential question. I was not, after all, seeking the feel between my toes of beachfront property. I was not building a box where children might frolic. I intended to rock this sucker. I did not need an inner Japanese craftsperson to tell me what to do about the not-in-plain-view.
The next day, physically and spiritually refreshed, I freed the hole. I inserted the plug. I restored the bag.
Jab. Jab, jab. Jab, jab, cross. It jelly-legged like – to re-visit my earlier simile of the Sweet Science – Floyd Patterson.
The next step is a flex bike – converts from stationary to recumbent – some assembly required.
Health is war without guns. Didn’t von Clausewitz say that?