Something More Annoying Than The Gym At the office, we call it Annoying Personality Disorder, or A.P.D. for short. We diagnose people all the time, which is unfortunate because there is no known cure. Once diagnosed, one always has it--kind of like herpes of the personality; the gift that keeps on giving. A.P.D., in some settings, is contagious. A sociologist might analyze it as the power of group process--how an individual can slowly come to control and influence those around them simply because there's some unspoken, agreed upon protocol. How the unspoken rule is established, nobody knows. Those in academic circles study this very phenomenon. A practitioner on the street, like me, deals with the reality of A.P.D. every day, though. Everyone's experienced it. It happens like this. You're sitting around a conference table with co-workers, clients, vendors, what have you. A person says something and the room busts into laughter. The joker repeats the statement, followed by, "Yah know? Yah know what I'm sayin'?" Laughter escalates to a guffaw. The person immediately to the right of the comedian turns to the person on his or her right and repeats the joke one more time. Everyone has the opportunity to repeat the quip as the crack passes around the table with laughter increasing in decibels as it goes. Even worse, women open their handbags in search of a tissue to dab their at-risk makeup as the room transforms from comedy club back to conference room. Later that evening, with your date, you recall the series of events that led up to the uncontrollable chuckles while sharing a chicken Caesar salad. Your date stares at you blankly. "Well," you say burying your head in your chicken Caesar, "I guess you just had to be there." At this point, chances are, you were the victim of an A.P.D. flare up. A.P.D. can sneak up on the untrained eye. Once you learn to spot it, however, you can diagnose it fairly quickly. Quick diagnosis is important because, remember, it is contagious. So when I spotted this guy at the gym, I knew right away, A.P.D. The all-telling sign: he's got the presence of one of those hairdressers who create drama when there is no drama around. The type who won't accept "Same-oh, same-oh" for an answer when he asks what's new and then proceeds to pry. But as he clips away, every knock at your life opens a door to his own personal world of Hollywood-style drama. "How's work?" He asks, even though he hasn't a clue what I do. "Busy," I'll say. "Oh! Tell me about it!" He exclaims, not really wanting me to say anything. This is more of a rhetorical statement for me, and he carries on as if I asked him that very question. "I've been standing on my feet since Jenny came on this morning, and look, Oprah's on now. I haven't even had a thing to eat. I suppose it's good because I guess I really shouldn't eat as much as I do." He steps back, looks into the mirror, and waves his scissors and comb for emphasis, "Oh, gawd, and I'm so white. White, white, white, white, white. I really need to get more sun. Know what I mean? Maybe if I went platinum blonde, it'd make me look darker, wouldn't you think? Anyway, I finally moved out of my Mother's. She was driving me crazy. Wanted me to pay rent. Can you believe that? Me? Her only baby, and she wants me to pay rent?" "So, it's a good change," I say, reluctant to get a word in, but conscious he wants me to fill the silence. "Let's just say, it's a change that needed to happen. So I moved in with my boyfriend, and you know he likes all that Southwestern style decor. I just absolutely hate pastels and earth tones, you know? So eighties. I mean, I'm an up person. I mean, I'm bubbly, perky, and those colors are just too drab. I'm much more of a contemporary type. Danish style with bright, bold colors. So I guess I'll have to compromise and allow him to keep something. Which way do you part?" "Right." "So, I'm thinking maybe we can move some of those pots out to the deck and create a little container garden. After all, it's way too hot to sit outside, so they'll be out of the way. I wouldn't even think of sitting outside, I can barely make it to the car before I get the air conditioning on. Oh, I'm gonna melt. Makes my deodorant give out, yah know." The only thing that makes getting a hair cut bearable is the fact that I have less of it to cut every time I go. In theory, I'm be spending less and less time in the chair. And it's cheap, too. I've learned cost does not correlate to quality of conversation. So this guy at the gym with the hair dresser persona wears headphones, announcing to all, "Don't talk to me. No, don't even interact with me. I am, after all, working out, and I'm a busy hair dresser." Then his nose turns up as he works towards his target heart rate, body language yelling, "Go ahead and look at me, though, because my hair is perfectly done, I smell sweet, my workout attire coordinates with the cross-trainer flawlessly, and my bronzed skin is simply, immaculate." He's got A.P.D. bad. He's probably had it since he was a child. Today, as an adult, he probably presses the buttons of all those around him, particularly his fellow hair dressers. "There he goes again. Rambling on about his mother," they'll whisper into the hearing aids of their blue-haired clients. Appropriately, I call this guy the Hair Dresser. He's probably pushing 35, and the minute he lets his workout routine go, he'll begin to jiggle like a congealed salad passing around the table during the holidays. So he's obsessive about his workout. One day three weeks ago, I saw him naked in the locker room at the gym. Let's just say Michelangelo's statue of David doesn't talk, and as long he has his headphones on, neither does the Hair Dresser. I began to slip into a fit of depression at the sight of this statue of perfection. It simply wasn't fair that someone so damn annoying could be so damn good looking. But that's when it hit me. It hit me so hard, I almost fell off the treadmill. He may never come close to looking like a congealed salad, but he will always have that annoying personality. His condition will never change. Never. The thought made me smile. I, on the other hand, have complete control over the shape I'm in. I don't have to look like molded Jell-O. And people say I have a great personality, too. People as annoying as the hair dresser don't deserve to look that good. I do. It's been three weeks since I've seen the hair dresser naked. Twenty-one days, and I can say I've been to the gym or pool 21 days in a row. I'm in a routine, now. A new lifestyle. The thought of him living with his annoying personality motivates me to no end. So now when the alarm rings at 5:30 a.m., I leap out of bed. The dog raises his head with droopy ears and sleepy eyes saying, "Where the hell are you going this early?", I whisper to my sleepy baby, "To battle the hair dresser, Long John. To battle the hair dresser." "Oh," he says, the statement completely irreverent to him. "Then can I have your pillow?"