Who's Annoying Me This Week.

Oh you guys, there's this girl at my gym and I'm afraid I might have to kill her. To back up a bit, I started going to the fancy gym on campus after work to do my weights routine because it's less crowded than the big chain gym I belong to and it's really shiny and new, to boot. I do my free weights and then I do intervals on the stepmill, partially because it's really freaking hard and partially because nobody else is every using it. There are two of them side-by-side and I can always count on having my pick. Until recently.

For the uninitiated, a stepmill is this piece of work:


It's basically a mini staircase. From hell.

Have you ever seen a true Cardio Junkie? They are pretty easy to spot because it's usually the person at the gym who's freaking you out. They are intense. Seriously crazy intense, and usually work out at a pace that's worrisome. The Cardio Junkie is usually whippet thin and frantic. If he/she is in spin class, they're spinning so fast that you worry the flywheel is going to come loose. If they're in a step class, they're two beats ahead of the instructor. It's disturbing to watch and there's one at every gym.

Anyway, recently at the school gym I noticed an interloper on my stepmill. She's a textbook Junkie. Freakishly intense, does more cardio at a faster pace and for longer than anyone should ever do on a stepmill. But fine, you know, whatever. She's an adult and can do what she wants...or that's what I thought until the bitch started sweating all over me.

Let me back up a sec and give you a picture of her: Whippet thin, favors running shorts (rolled at the waist until her ass cheeks are hanging out) and a sports bra. Carries a filthy backpack full of crap that she likes to strew about the floor around the stepmill like it's her middle school bedroom. Has a mini-fan that she sets up on the frame and RUNS on the stepmill while simutaneously reading, hand to God, the New Yorker. OMG. Let me repeat that - she RUNS ON THE STEPMILL. I can barely walk on the thing without falling off, not because I'm not fit but because it's a moving staircase thing three feet off the ground. She's got talent, I'll give her that.

When I arrived at the gym the first time I saw her I noticed her on the stepmill. An hour later when I came down from the weight room to do my intervals she was STILL THERE. And she was sweaty. Really, really sweaty.

I climbed dubiously on the other stepmill and started my intervals and that's when I felt it - droplets of Cardio Freak all over my arm. Now, I'm no OCD anti-bacterial wipe germ freak, but I gotta draw the line at stranger sweat being flung on me. I looked up at her but she was too busy reading the teeny-tiny New Yorker print while lunging up fake stairs to notice. At some point she decided she needed to crank it up a notch and jettisoned the magazine right over the top of the machine so she could really get going. Just flung it to the wind. Holy shit. I spent the rest of my cardio session fantasizing about casually punching her in the face.

Ever since then I've seen her all the damn time and I still really hate her. I hate her garbage strewn over the floor, I hate seeing her bony ass hanging out of her shorts, I just hate. So, when I was on a vacation a few weeks ago and decided to go the gym, I chose the big chain over the school gym just because I didn't want to ruin my mood with my hate. I got to the chain gym and headed for the stepmills and GUESS WHO. MF. That's right, bitch goes to both gyms and is clearly stalking me.

Something must be done.