Device Malfunction

[6 word request: Wristwatch changes age, makes Jocks Dads]

Michael fiddled with the fitness tracker in the passenger seat while Tad parked their truck just outside Sir Wingalot. Big Tad leaned his beefy body over to see what it was that had his bodybuilder best friend so concerned. “What’s the verdict?” Tad boomed. “That fucking thing broken?”

Michael sighed and shook his head. “Damn thing costs two grand and it didn’t track a minute of our workout!”

Tad chuckled and patted the bloated pectoral muscles that pressed up against the steering wheel. “Fuck, man. That was a hell of a chest day, too. Your little gadget really missed out.”

On their way into the wing joint, Tad gave Michael a shove. “Put that fucking thing away,” he boomed. The 300 pound hulk’s friendly push was still enough to send the 240 pound model flying. The fitness tracker flew from Michael’s hands and bounced twice before landing inches from a sewer grate.

“Damn, bro!” Michael said, snatching the expensive tracker and checking it for damage. “Dude, I’m supposed to post ten ads about this thing this month. I already spent the money on gear, so I can’t go losing it!”

Big Tad, forced to almost waddle because of the thickness of his quad muscles, just shrugged his big shoulders. “Don’t know why you do that fitness influencer stuff,” he said, patting the bloated roid-gut standing out like a keg on his torso. The hostess’ eyes bugged out at the two huge athletes approaching, but Tad just flashed his big dopey smile.

“Two, please,” he said. “Table, I don’t think I can squeeze this big ass into a booth.”

Michael had finally gotten the device to power on again as they had a seat at their table. Nearby, a couple of polo shirt wearing frat boys turned their attention to the large athletes as they sat.

“Jesus Christ, what are they gonna dip their wings in, STEROIDS?” said a spiky-haired blond, whose intoxicated buddies exploded with laughter at the dig.

Michael, momentarily distracted from the malfunctioning fitness tracker, balled up his fists. “That fucker said that loud on purpose,” he said, about to rise to his full 6’5” height to show the mouthy little drunk exactly what he was dealing with, but Tad put a beefy hand on his shoulder and kept him in his seat.

“Relax,” the big guy said as he scanned the menu. “Of course people are gonna talk. You’re shredded as fuck and twice their height, and I’m the size of an elephant. Just let them jaw off. They don’t have the balls to come over here.”

“Whatever,” Michael said. “I gotta make a post about this fitness tracker in the next hour, so I gotta get it working again…” For some reason, it wouldn’t record his statistics. He’d entered his age and height several times and the values remained empty. “Shit, now it’s asking me to register my lifting partner to track his progress too.”

“If you don’t put that thing away, you’re going to have to register someone else, because I’m lifting alone from now on,” Tad said. He smiled as he saw a busty woman acknowledge their table. “Great. We got the hot waitress. I love how servers just fucking melt when they get to wait on huge studs like us.”

“Fuck it,” Michael said, finally entering 85 as his age. For some reason, THIS value remained, appearing as his lifting partner’s age as well. For some reason he felt relaxed, and the stress of needing to fix it was gone.

“Aww, you guys are SO adorable,” the waitress said as she approached. She crouched down to greet Tad, who was now a shriveled, portly old man, struggling to read the menu clutched in his shaking, wrinkly fist.

“WHAT’S THAT?” Tad wheezed, leaning toward the young woman. “Sorry, hearing aid battery died!” He wore a baggy blue sweatsuit that covered most of his sagging form.

That wasn’t right, Michael knew. Tad wasn’t an old man… was he? Tad was a great big… no, wait, he USED to be. Ever since his third major hip surgery he’d finally given up on going to the gym, and the last of the muscle of his youth just melted off. That was five--no, ten!--years ago.

Except it wasn’t. Michael knew it wasn’t. He looked down at his own hands, shocked at the deep purple veins cutting across pale white skin. On his wrist he had one of those new devices his grand-son had given him--no! A fog hung over his senses. He struggled to recall, but it was like there were two sets of memories there.

He remembered walking in with massive Tad, his spiky black hair and his thick neck, his body so huge he could only sit comfortable at a table. He focused on that image: Tad, in a stringer tank, his massive body flexing with every movement. ANd yet next to him, a hobbled old gentleman asked for steamed vegetables and couldn’t hear a word the waitress said to him.

“If those old fucks shit their pants, I’m fucking OUT of here,” said a youngster from a nearby table. Michael turned slowly--damn, SO slowly! His body felt so sluggish--and saw the little rat at a nearby table. A small crowd of twenty-year olds spending their parents’ money. Kids like that made him sick.

“I oughtta go over there,” Michael groaned, pointing right in there direction. “...show them how much fight this old man still has left!” He was distracted by the skin sagging off his arm as he raised it. He had a momentary flash of a massive, bulging bicep--but then he remembered that was so many decades before.

The doohickey on Michael’s wrist suddenly lit up. His eyes went wide as it prompted him for his age. “My age?” he said. “Damned thing wants to know my age again!”

“HUNH?” Tad said, shaking in his seat, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“THING’S BROKEN!” Michael shouted to his buddy, who sitill couldn’t hear him.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” shouted one of the punks from the nearby table.

Michael slapped at the device weakly. “Off!” he groaned. “Turn OFF!” But he must have hit something.

The screen read: “AGE: 18”

Michael blinked, his vision suddenly much clearer. “Damn thing’s bricked or something.”

Tad, next to him, emptied the rest of his can of Rockstar into his glass before upending it. He slammed the glass on the table, crunching on the ice. “Yeah? Send it back. Threaten a bad review.”

Michael scanned his buddy’s husky body. He was clearly an athlete, but four years of college football hadn’t unleashed his body’s propensity to put on mass. Now, he just looked like a barrel-chested chubby guy. Meanwhile, Michael’s own body looked long and willowy--clearly pre-Crew team, when he would put on muscle he’d never thought his body could hold, getting thick as a redwood.

“Weird,” Michael said out loud. “I almost had a thought of, like… deja vu or something.”

Tad was snapping a selfie, trying to look brooding despite his doughy face. “Yeah?”

“Like, I got this image in my head of us in college. I mean, we’re not even going to college for another month… right?” When he’d spoken it, he’d felt it was a fact, but now he wasn’t so sure. Why was it so hard to think?

The waitress returned with their boneless tenders.

“Hey, Diane,” Tad said, puffing up his flabby chest and smiling wide. “We’re planning on leaving you a huge tip no matter what, but is it bad form if I left you a phone number too?”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “How about you wait about five years and then maybe?”

Tad scoffed. “Diane, I’m 18 years old! Totally legal, baby!”

Diane shook her head. “I don’t date people who need me to buy them beer,” she said as she walked away.

“What a fucking loser!” said one of the Abercrombie assholes sitting at a nearby table. “Hey dude, you just broadcast to this whole restaurant what a tool you are!”

Tad hung his head. “Dammit… if I was bigger, I swear to god, I’d walk over there and grab that little blonde-haired punk by the neck and fold him in half…”

The screen of the Fitness Tracker blinked on and off, flashing a LO BATTERY signal. The AGE readout was flashing garbled data:

“AGE: @#”

“AGE U_”

“AGE |~”

Michael smashed the square screen with his thumb, but it was unresponsive.

“AGE: 55”

Then the screen faded out. Michael shook it a couple of times, then set it aside.

“Well,” Michael said, shrugging. “Looks like it died. Guess I’m just going to send it back.”

Big Tad slurped the meat off a wing, wiping the sauce from his salt-and-pepper beard after. Michael stared at the big pillowy man, whose thickly built body looked shocking to him at first--hadn’t he been a chiseled bodybuilder stud? Of course, Michael remembered, that was a couple decades ago, and Tad had given up the bodybuilder game to do Strongman competitions now--hell on his joints, but the diet was easier. All that rock-hard mass had just filled in on all sides with fluff, making him look almost like an overstuffed marshmallow man--a look only Tad could pull off.

Michael looked down at himself, shocked at the hard turtleshell his gut had become but satisfied with the hard sinews of his body. He was still built like a brick shithouse, just with a beard that hung down to his pecs now. Years of roids had given him a bloated midsection, but despite the new crags on his aging face, he was still pretty enough to model--just with a tank top on most of the time.

“Tad, I feel like… like things changed today,” Michael said as he and his buddy stood up to leave. Nearby was a small crowd of fratty looking kids, but none of them had the balls to get mouthy with the two grizzled old meatheads sauntering out the door. “I feel liike we walked in here a lot younger. Did that happen?”

Tad reached out and grabbed Michael’s hand, interlocking his fingers. “I always feel young as hell when I’m with you,” he said, moving Michael’s big paw over to Tad’s stomach. Michael let his hand sink into the warm flesh, feeling the iron abdomen beneath. His cock jumped in his pants.

“Damn,” Michael said as they approached Tad’s truck. “Don’t even think I’ll need viagra tonight.”