We all have our bad days, but there's this guy at my gym and, well, he's just always crabby. Proving yet again how wildly creative I am, in my head I have nicknamed him Mr. Crabby Guy.

This morning I was happily headbanging along to "The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas" which is basically a science lesson courtesy of They Might Be Giants and The Kind, The Generous Beight who sent me not one but TWO Workout CD's.

Oh yes, I was most definitely in my happy place, motoring away on the elliptical machine, when I caught sight of Mr. Crabby Guy. He Was Staring At Me, emitting massive waves of crabbiness directly at my person. Clearly he felt it was his turn to use the elliptical machine.

Well, the deal is that there are many cardio options at my gym. In addition to two elliptical machines there are three treadmills, three exercise bikes and three stairmasters. Several of each kind of machine were open, but both elliptical machines were in use.

Mr. Crabby Guy does not appear to be a flexible person because Mr. Crabby Guy did not avail himself of any of the other cardio options.

Instead, he stood there and stared fixedly at me, probably because he felt I was stupidly old and would become exhausted at any minute. He threw all his mental power into willing me off the elliptical machine.

Fine.

I smiled cheerily at him. I was in my happy place. He could emanate as much crabbiness my way as he wanted, for lo, I was sheathed in the armour of Beight's witty and energizing musical selections. His crabbiness bounced off me like a turd off teflon.

Okay, so the CD ended and I gathered up my stuff to vacate the machine for him. There's a small, courteous thing you can do at my gym for others, and that is to wipe down the machines after you use them--you know, clean off the sweat cooties. The gym has bottles of cleaner and paper towels scattered about just for that purpose. So I grabbed a paper towel and some cleaner and washed down the handles of the elliptical machine, erasing my personal cooties.

My three loyal readers will be shocked to hear that as he climbed up on the elliptical machine Mr. Crabby Guy TSK'ED me. Yes, he TSK'D me, making that incredibly annoying little clicking sound with his tongue BECAUSE MY LITTLE ACT OF COURTESY HAD DELAYED HIS USE OF THE ELLIPTICAL MACHINE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

Stripped of my aural armour, the full power of the tsk invaded my very being, flooding me with his overwhelming crabbiness, pushing all my previous happiness off into a small corner of my heart where it made small whimpering sounds.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

All this happened in a stupidly short period of time, seconds. I couldn't believe how quickly this guy got on my last nerve and stomped all the happiness I'd been feeling into ragged little stompy bits.

A million insults raced through my mind. I was winding up to hit him right between the eyes with something unbelievably cruel, something that involved the word rectum or synonyms thereof.

I opened my mouth and out came the words:

"Have a good one, eh."

Oh yeah. I was THAT brutal.