So I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been so grumpy lately. I looked through the Health sections of various newspapers over the weekend, but they’ve been no help. In fact, I was more confused after than I was before, thanks to all that meticulous research.

Part of the reason might have to do with the Atkins diet. My weight is just fine, but I have shamelessly followed the herd all my life, and I wasn’t about to stop once the all-meat diet exploded in popularity. I “Baa,” therefore I am. Also, Subway is hands down my favorite fast food chain. I’ve eaten there since high school. But ever since their Super Bowl media blitz, the Atkins crowd has steadily moved in, and now Subway is a popular Atkins hangout. Instead of expecting either the Subway chain or a large percentage of its clientele to adjust to me, I decided to adjust to them instead. Dammit, I just want to belong!

But I read in the Times over the weekend that the Atkins diet can make you extremely irritable. There is also unproved speculation that it can cause swelling and dangerously high cholesterol levels, leading to weight gain—which might have caused the death of Dr. Atkins himself, founder of the diet. Of these potential ailments, grumpiness is the only one that cannot be concealed with a dark-colored shirt, which is why it concerned me the most.

According to Times speculation, the body needs starch in order to produce a certain chemical. Without this chemical, a person can eat a 16-ounce steak and still not feel satisfied. This is worrisome stuff, in my opinion. How long will it be before people start dropping dead of cardiac arrest while scarfing down their 43rd or 44th breadless Big Mac? Sure, there are probably many Greek philosophers who will argue that life is nothing more than a futile quest for self-fulfillment and satisfaction, and that we are always doomed to fall short of the goals we set during our lifetime. But there’s a difference between dying whilst fighting the good fight, and delivering your final soliloquy to a ten-foot tall statue of Mayor McCheese, as beef grease dribbles down your chin. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. Now get in as much artery-packing as you can before December, because that’s when they stop super-sizing the McJaws of Life.

Seriously, though, after reading the article, I realized that the Atkins diet was the cause of all my grumpiness. Then I flipped to the Job Market section, and began reading about how the terrible economic situation has been taking a psychological toll on laid-off workers. I happen to be one of those laid-off workers. I have a college degree from a very good school, but I’ve been doing low-level temp jobs for the last year and-a-half. The Times article featured a tech worker from Manhattan’s Silicon Alley, a web designer who had to deal with being unemployed for two years. It had a happy ending; he found a permanent job which he likes even more than the one he lost. But the article never loses sight of how long-term unemployment can injure the psyche: sleepless nights, depression, irritability.

This article was a revelation for me. I felt my sleep-deprived, depressed, and irritable eyes opened wider than they had been in a while. “Of course,” I said. “Clearly, this is the reason for my overwhelming feelings of discontent as of late!” I began to feel myself enveloped in a warm, bright, healing light. It reminded me of the night I wandered into the middle of that unlit stretch of Flamingo Road, in an attempt to flag down the oncoming Chevy, so my car could get a jump. It was just like that, only without the horrible accident that followed.

I still felt myself enveloped in a warm, bright, healing light this morning, when I discovered the free Daily News which was left on the front porch of the house. I don’t subscribe to the Daily News, so I don’t know how it got there. However, I am not one to look a free newspaper in the mouth.

Upon flipping the tabloid-style paper open to any random page, I was greeted by a byline stating that lack of sex makes people more irritable, or words to that effect. The actual byline was far more tacky, and I would have chucked the Daily News aside that very second, if not for the well-lit, surprisingly tasteful, full-color photos that accompanied the article. According to the Daily News reporter, sex produces serotonin, which supposedly makes a person more confident, and less of a grumpipuss. Here was yet another—the third in a span of three days—possible explanation for why I have recently felt like dropping anvils on the heads of bunny rabbits.

I don’t know about you folks out there, but if there’s one thing I hate (Other than bunny rabbits at this moment), it’s people who whine, brag, or go into detail about their sex lives. I will admit, however, that my sex life has been in decline ever since that 9th grade Health class where I found out what sex actually was. See, in 8th grade, while I was at my friend F.M.’s house, I perused some of the Playdudes that he had found in his dad’s closet. There was a survey in one of them, and it said that three out of four couples considered seeing their partner getting dressed or undressed to be a kind of sexual intercourse. Now, I figured that I had seen myself getting at least partially dressed or undressed, almost every day since I was about five years old. That added up to a lot of sex over the years! Of course, 9th grade inevitably came along, and the numbers never quite hit the same peak.

But rather than be spurred on to an inspection of the tacky—by a Daily News article, no less—I have taken a more pragmatic tact towards glumness and irritability. My conclusion: It’s a stressful world out there, man. The bleak Social Security picture means people have to lose weight and take better care of themselves. The horrible job market, and a president who is so out of touch with the working man that he considers assembling hamburgers at a fast food joint to be manufacturing work, means thousands of people have to find some reason for living, so they can lose weight and take better care of themselves. And no offense to the Daily News, but I’m not about to go Deuce Bigolo, so gettin’ some ain’t about to pay my rent, nor the bill for my inevitable prostate transplant.

And yet, loneliness does inevitably seep in from time to time. That’s when I hustle down to the singles bar just around the corner. Not just any singles bar, either! It only caters to the out-of-work, carbohydrate-shunning crowd. They’re an okay bunch, except for this one guy who’s always upbeat and happy. An unemployed, Atkins-following single who isn’t a “Looks like you’ve already had one too many tonight, sir,” away from going Hulk?! Someone like that, in a joint like this, and you know he’s either a faker or a freak.