The gym I go to (don't laugh) offers a free summer membership to schoolkids.

The kids swamp the place, working out a little, flirting a lot, the boys busting each other's chops over who can push the most weight. They cluster around a weight machine, looking at their phones and chatting while one of their number gives the bench press a try. After that kid gets through, sometimes they all try the machine, but just as often they all drift away, like a herd of squirrels. I like the kids. They're noisy and funny and unfocused, and so was I in 1974.

I'm 66. I go to the gym because my wife read an article on some website saying weightlifting is "the fountain of youth" for old guys like me.

It's not. I've been going to that gym three times a week since February, and I'm still old, but if my wife wants me not to die, I'll do my best not to die.

I soldier on, increasing the weight a little at a time, neither proud nor embarrassed, pushing the weight the way I used to load washers when I was in high school and worked in a hotel laundry. You do it until it's all done, and then you go home.

But either it's my gray hair and pouchy eyes, or maybe it's my white skin, but there's a certain kind of guy who thinks I've got a MAGA hat out in my car. At least that's what I thought.

Last Tuesday, I was just settling into the biceps machine when a guy who looked like he was 50 strolled over and leapt into complaint. I'm old. Everyone thinks old people complain all the time, and they figure their own complaints will be welcome.

"I joined another gym," the guy says. "I can't take all these kids."

"Yeah," I said. "They get in for free during the summer."

"You know what I saw in the locker room last week?" the guy says.

I started to say the "Hail Mary" silently. Unless there was a rat in there, I probably didn't want to hear what he'd peeped in the locker room.

"I walked in and there were two young boys making out," the guy says.

"The Lord is with thee," I thought, the comforting words of the prayer running through my mind.

"When you say, 'making out,' were they just kissing?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, looking a little puzzled.

"They stop when you come in?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Well, that's probably all you can expect," I told the guy.

"I complained at the desk," he said. "The guy behind the desk went back there to check, but he said there was nothing going on."

"Well, there ya go," I non-committed, reaching for the handles that would allow me to start using the biceps machine.

"Holy Mary, mother of God," I thought. I was running out of prayer.

"I live in the suburbs," the guy said. "I'm not used to stuff like that."

I brought the handles up to my chin. He left.

I have a friend. The guy is a little more sophisticated than I am. He's 20 years younger than I am, and he went to college in New York City where he took at least one class in gender studies. I went to college in Missouri, and one of my best friends raised a pig as part of his coursework for a degree in agriculture. I told him the story of my gym encounter.

"This guy's talking to me like he doesn't know the Original Man Rules," I said. "The Man Rules say that talking to a guy you don't know about gay stuff IS gay stuff."

"It was a come on," my friend said. "That guy wanted to see if you liked the story, if you wanted to talk about it a lot, if you liked talking about two guys making out."

Hell, maybe the gym is making me look better.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion, and read features by Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Devil's Elbow: Dancing in the Ashes of America." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.

Photo credit: Jelmer Assink at Unsplash