The gym buddy, Czar Peter.

Confession: I'm a card-carrying member of a gym. I pay someone for the privilege of picking up their weighty objects. I realize any argument offered after that sentence can't be based on logic. But whatever, dude.

Two days ago, I was on the last rep of a superset of pushups when I was most surprisingly interrupted by a newcomer. A newbie to this gym.

"Three, four, five," I counted mentally, then stood up to find the love-child of John Madden and Wilford Brimley standing and staring about 8 inches away.

"I'll tell you what you need to do!" he trumpeted, as if training a schnauzer to sit. "Follow me!" He led me across the gym to a machine intended to make guys with no neck have even less of a neck. "You'll want to lean this way and push that way..."

He continued with the instructional monologue, but I was busy picturing a guy with a neck so small that his skull sat right atop his spleen...

Anyway.

"Thanks for the advice, Sir. I may try that next time. Sounds good."

And he walked away. Weird. But whatever. Gym guys are sort of like that.

Chapter 2. Yesterday evening I walk into the gym and I see Mr. Madden-Brimley. And this time he's full-on training a guy I know to be a lone wolf; a guy who talks to and knows nobody here. So I KNOW he doesn't know this new man. And Madden-Brimley is coarsely, I mean coarsely, coaching this dude. "Let's go Michael! Come on Michael! One more!! Two more Michael!! Squeeze it Michael!!"

Whoa.

'Michael' is standing in front of the mirror wall curling a bar on which Madden-Brimley is basically hanging. He's coaching the crap out of this guy he doesn't know.

But that's not even the best part. After 12,000 reps and some CPR, Michael was allowed a break. M-B goes into the diet advice.

"Looks like you might like to have a beer every now and then. That's OK, but if you can cut down on that, that's good. And the carbs. Cut down on the carbs, too. Breads, pastas, grains." I'm quoting as accurately as this keyboard will allow. Promise. There was a gym full of witnesses.

And it hit me- Take away the penchant for hard drinking and the pituitary giantism and Madden-Brimley is Czar Peter. This must be what it's like to just get taken over. A guy arrives on the scene and just runs things. There was a strange power in it all.

Needless to say, I've got to go; I have another training session in 15 minutes with Madden-Brimley.