feeling slighted

For some reason that I can’t remember, Al and I had to go to the gym separately on Saturday. It was a push day for me so I needed someone to spot me at the beginning of my workout. She suggested that we overlap our workouts so that I’d be starting when she was finishing so that she could spot me when she was done and then get on with whatever it was that kept us from going at the same time in the first place. So that’s what we did.
When I arrived, she was on the stair stepper. She spotted me when I walked in and waved me over, which surprised me because on the next-door stair stepper, just a couple feet away from her, was a guy only slightly younger, and slightly better looking than me. Now you might think that slightly better looking shouldn’t pose much of a worry, that there is probably a range of looks into which we both fall and that the slight advantage he had wouldn’t matter. But when you’ve been married 19 years to the same gnarly (or is that gnarled?) guy, probably same good lookingness, or even slightly less good lookingness could catch your eye as well. These are the things that middle-aged, slightly less good looking husbands have to watch out for.
Later, I got a chance to talk to this guy. I needed to find out if he was slightly tougher so that if it came to that, I would know if I could rough him up or not. I found out that his name is Rob. Ha, I thought, you might be slightly better looking, and slightly younger, but your name is slightly not as cool as mine. Only slightly. I bet you’re slightly less tough than me too.
We had a great conversation that lasted more than half an hour, which is what I wanted to tell you about. But since I’ve wasted so much time on all this other nonsense, I guess I’ll just have to do that another time.