Caught, NOT looking

The other night at the gym, my partner mentioned a bodybuilder he saw on TV. I thought one of the signed photos, hanging on the wall in the gym, was of the guy he mentioned. So I walked to the front of the gym to look. The problem was I couldn't make out the name on the photo. Looking up, I squinted, turned my head, tried looking at it from every angle to get a good look. I spent a few minutes trying but I never could make it out.

When I finally gave up and turned around I noticed a guy across the gym staring at me. I mean really staring at me. I knew the guy but not that well. I took a few more steps and checked, yep, still staring. By the time I made it back to my partner I realized why he was staring. See, he had just competed in a local bodybuilding contest last month. He did well for his first contest so the gym honored him by putting his picture on the wall last week, with all the famous bodybuilders. The picture of him, posing in only a banana hammock, (this kind, not this) was hanging right next to the picture I was ogling, for so long.

I can only imagine what he was thinking as I appeared to be looking at his photo from every possible angle. Now every time I see him in the gym he gives me this awkward look. I want to approach him and say something like, "hey, um... do you know who's picture that is hanging on the wall right NEXT to yours? Because I was looking at that one, not yours, the other day." But I know I would just be digging a deeper hole.

Of course my partners thinks the situation is hilarious. It's not. Well, if it happened to them it would be, but it didn't. What kind of luck does it take to be not looking at a guy's photo at the exact moment he is in the gym paying attention to who's looking at his photo??? Which again, for the record, I wasn't. grrrr!