P.E.: The Gym Farter is Worse Than Puberty.

The gym, in many ways, is in itself worse than puberty. All the painful memories of running the mile, the traces of your predecessor dripping down the back of the nautilus machine, the paper cups and water fountains; let's be real, here, it's just a new setting for pubescence.

Of course Karla and myself only go there in the first place to stave off wild jealousy from our peers – who wouldn't get a little frustrated if they knew that all it actually takes for us to look this flawless is cream-baths, a daily walk to the cocktail bar, and the blood of virgins? When we're there, we do our best to look "authentic," though it can be difficult as we don't sweat, instead seeping delicate amounts of body glitter through our miniscule pores.

Imagine, then, the searing insult of the gym farter.

It's bad enough to have to be running to nowhere, circling and circling and circling like a hamster on a wheel. You're already swaddled in the thick, damp odors of those around you and the dusty allergenics of uncleaned vents puffing recycled air, assaulted by "The View" and the Nascar channel on either side of the room, offended by the woman who's all pooch and yet wearing a leotard she hasn't pulled out of her closet since it came free with the Jane Fonda workout tape she bought in 1982.

And then, inevitably on the machine right next to yours, usually looking like he (because we all know that the gym farter is almost always a he) will soon be needing cardio paddles, he's sweating so hard through his doughy layers of stored Philly cheese steaks and blooming onions, the farter attacks. And the smell is always horrific! Like rotting carcasses stuffed inside a sewage leak then left out to bake in the sun. You can't move, at least not away, you already can hardly breathe, and his clothes are probably giving off that musty, worn-too-many-times-without-washing scent unique to old people and the G.F. Because we all know that someone well-groomed, in good shape, attractive, and sweet-smelling could never be the G.F.

Just because you're overweight, more married to twinkies than to treadmills, don't sabotage us all, gym farter! Or at least stop eating glue in the back of home room before you change into the clothes that have been in your P.E. locker for a month without taking them home to your mom to wash – the rest of us are sick of having all that rub off on…our nostrils.

Posted by Jilly