Things That Make Me Grumpy

I've been a little grumpier than normal this week because, well, I'm not really sure why. I just have been, so get off my back. And getting off on a bit of a tangent that some of you may have heard before: I await the day when I'm old enough that my grumpiness will be accepted by society. Anyway, what has me out of sorts today is that I just got back from the gym where I encountered two of my big pet peeves, irritations that on some days almost keep me home because I know it's going to piss me off if I see it.

First was getting there and finding weights all over the floor. I've seen a few high school age kids down there in the past and suspect they are to blame. If I actually catch them it will take every ounce of will power I have not to hurt them but will do my best to just find out their names and get them banned. If you are so lazy, slovenly, disrespectful of others, and refuse to take proper care of the equipment, you have no business using it.

Which brings me to irritation #2. Let me preface this by saying that in my gym there are normally 3 treadmills, an elliptical trainer, a stair machine, and an exercise bike. The elliptical trainer has been broken for a while and disappeared about 3 weeks ago - I thought taken away to be repaired but it's been long enough that I'm beginning to wonder if it's coming back. I hate jogging, particularly on a treadmill where I can feel like I've been running forever and look at the timer to find that it's been 3 minutes. In addition I'm currently suffering from plantar fasciitis which makes running not simply unenjoyable but painful too. I also hate stair machines which pretty much leaves me with just the exercise bike which I can tolerate for my cardio work right now.

With all of that back story finally out of the way, I walked into the gym to find something that absolutely enrages me: a lazy slob of a woman sitting on the exercise bike reading a book and pedaling so slowly that she neither worked up a sweat or even started breathing hard. She would get a better cardiovascular workout by watching a particularly suspenseful movie or television show, and again it took restraint not to tell her that. This particular woman and other offensive humans like her serve absolutely no purpose in this world other than inconveniencing others, most notably me. And were that not bad enough she had the radio tuned to KUBE which if you are not familiar plays shitty top 40/hip hop - which according to me can only be considered music in the most liberal sense of the word.

Being intent on getting into better shape though, I focused my rage on the hated treadmill and after what seemed like about an hour but in actuality was 7:50 I finished up a mile and slowed things down a bit. I continued on to a mile and a half which is about the limit of what I can tolerate on a treadmill. I was actually surprised that I could pull off a sub 8 minute mile in my current condition - 5'8" and 193 pounds which according to the BMI calculator I found online puts me at the high end of overweight and just barely below obese. I think it said I need to lose 30 pounds to get down to normal weight for my height and I can tell you now that's never going to happen.

So the moral of the story is that I hate the world but was able to successfully channel said hatred (this time anyway) into something constructive and no people were harmed in the making of this post. Not even the Starbucks employee who, when I went in to collect my free pastry on free pastry day had the audacity to tell me they were all out, very nearly resulting in a savage beating. Keep an eye on the local news, you may see my punching spree yet.