The Yoga Scout

The Yoga Scout enters a wine shop and locates his prey—a handsome white dude, most likely in his mid-thirties, trying to figure out what wine to get. Yoga Scout goes in for the kill and says, “Buying wine for your wife again because you have a hard time expressing how much you’d prefer she do core exercises with her Peloton app instead?”  Married white guy says, “How did you know?          Wine Shop owner approaches. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

             Yoga Scout’s eyes remain locked on his prey, and he says, “Ignore the wine merchant of death. She doesn’t care about making your sex life above average again. I do.”

            Wine Shop Owner says, “How dare you?”    Yoga Scout continues to focus his eyes only on his prey and fires back with, “We’re in the middle of a conversation. I’m in the process of offering a new lease on life. All you offer is boring talking points from Tucker Carlson. So, with all due respect, I’d like to help save what remains of this man’s flagging sense of independence.

            “Pretend you care about another customer’s interior life while we wrap up our bonding session here. I’m not your sigh-heavy husband, who has to act content with your indifference to high-stepping out of those spanks from more box jumps in the yard after you’re done pushing more artificial love juice into sour relationships which reached their expiration date ions ago, lady.”

            The Wine Shop Lady rolls her eyes and returns behind the cash register as a new customer enters; a pretty-faced gal, most likely in her early forties, who shoots a warm, semi-flirty smile at the Yoga Scout as she enters. Which he feels from behind the back of his head, because his third eye is open to eye sensations from every direction imaginable.  

            The Yoga Scout resumes his pitch. “Look, I know you’re buying wine for your wife because you strike me as more of an IPA guy, for starters, despite your complete lack of facial hair, secondhand clothes, or visible tats straining for hardcore Indie cred respect.

            “More importantly, I’ve been in your shoes before—married, constrained, and worry-laden because you share more in common with your nine-year-old daughter than your own wife, who has done everything in her power to depreciate your relationships with your family and old friends because she’s always struggled with accepting how much joy others are capable of giving you without her presence.”

            Middle-aged white dude says, “Are they doing a remake of Candid Camera again? How do you know so much about me, already? Or am I really that much of an open book on depression? Also, do you realize that pretty-faced gal who just came inside was giving you the yummy eyes the moment she came in the store?”

            The Yoga Scout says, “Of course I did. My third eye feels all lusty awe. More importantly, do you long for greater flexibility in your life? Do you fantasize about doing what you want to do to satisfy your own shot at fulfillment on this earth, which, more often than not, doesn’t include your wife, these days?”

            Middle-aged dude says, “Is Coors Light the pounding beer of choice in Daytona Beach during Spring Break because it’s lightweight and easy to inhale in rapid succession like miniature yenta-breath sorority girls from the University Of Buffalo? Personally, I wish they’d make a toothpaste that tastes like Coors Light, so I don’t taste anything afterwards.”

            The Yoga Scout exudes a booming laugh which shakes the pricier magnums of first-growth Bordeaux on the walls a little bit.

            Middle-aged guy says, “That’s the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard in my life. It was on par with a room full of black guys in the audience on Def Comedy Jam after Bernie Mac came out and said, ‘I ain’t scared of you motherfuckers,’ which set off a bomb of cataclysmic motion of high-flying legs and flailing arms in every direction, which screamed touchdown.”

            The Yoga Scout says, “My throat chakra is as clear as Times Square on New Years Day. So, I have no problem projecting with a mountainous echo of feeling.”

            Middle-aged dude says, “Are you a yoga instructor? I learned about chakras when I used to live in LA. My psychic there told me I should’ve been a big-time comedy writer already, but I had to pay two grand to clear my chakras first, because they were more clogged than my freshman one-hitter.

            “Although, one unplanned kid later, and with me still working as a journeyman IT agency headhunter who’s more of a trickler than a consummate rainmaker, not too much has changed, since.

            “Wearing sandals in the dead of the winter, in addition to your Spread Eagles tank top, should’ve told me you were in the yoga business. It looks like my third eye needs much greater opening than I thought, after all.”

            The Yoga Scout says, “I do teach yoga—hot naked yoga after dark, to be exact. But I’m also a single dad who was tired of living in his head. But that desire, alone, wasn’t enough for me to stretch myself outside my comfort zone for a change.

            “It took my seven-year-old daughter, at the time, to buy me some yoga classes from money made from her lavender cupcake bakeoff sale at school, to make me realize how much I need pretty feet in life, for nirvana on earth to help me heal my jaded heart for denying myself that scrumptious, inhalable pleasure for so long. There’s no bunions in my yoga class, Spread Eagles.”

            Middle-aged dude says, “How can you provide a no-bunion guarantee? Does your third eye possess x-ray vision, too?

            The Yoga Scout says, “You know how normally you can tell if a woman tastes good or not? Well, the more hot naked yoga you do after dark, in a candlelit room with In A Silent Way by Miles Davis on, the more in touch you become with your powers of intuition. Plus, anyone who enrolls in a hot naked yoga class is most likely bunion-free.

            “I offer a full month membership refund, if they do. My Spread Eagles hot naked yoga classes after dark is full of many single men moaning, too. I wanted to create a safe space mixer for divorcees to meet without having to go through all the drawn-out time-suck charade of having to wine and dine each other first, because when you’re a single dad or mom, who has the time for that bullshit, anyway?

            “Also, if you sign up for my class, it means you no have no problem with your fellow classmates objectifying your body, knowing how much my Spread-Eagle line of scented lubes and yoga mats (with my signature spread-eagle logo of spread legs with picture-perfect toes) fly off the shelves, too.

            “More importantly, my class helps heal the trauma of repressed rage and latent sexual tension which has been held imprisoned by shame and guilt for way too long.

            “Our motto at Spread Eagles is, “Moaning Is Good, Sighing Is Bad, because when you moan for pleasure, it means whatever you’re doing, is making your body come alive because it hurt so good.” Holla John Cougar Mellencamp lives, thank you very much.”

            Middle-aged guy says, “Do you have a yoga studio nearby? Croton Falls, NY isn’t a bastion of after-hours hot naked yoga studios, last time I checked on Yelp.”

            The pretty-faced forty-something gal approaches The Yoga Scout and says, “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear you two, but do you teach yoga at Spread Eagles in the city? My best friend met her latest and greatest boy toy there, at your Tribeca location, I think.”

            Middle-aged guy says, “Wait a minute. I thought only divorcees were invited to attend.” The Yoga Scout says, “There’s more fucked-up feet out there than you’d think. So, in the true spirt of compassion and love for variety, Spread Eagles does everything in its power to spread the love.”

Michael Kornbluth