UNINTENDED RUNNING

When asked by my lovely wife if we would escape the rain should we choose to walk the half mile or so to the fitness center, I assured her that there was no need for concern - that we were in the clear and positively would not get wet. Janet disagreed! Having just come off a bad head cold, one could understand her apprehension.

I must say that a weather man I’m not. Just feet from our front security gate, after only a tenth of a mile into our walk, little droplets began bouncing off the tops of our heads as well as the rest of our body. Ducking underneath the security gate’s narrow archway proved pointless seeing as though the strong wind was pushing the rain nearly sideways.

This impossible situation called for a hastened half run and half walk in the general direction of the fitness center, all the while keeping our eyes half squinted, our noggins retracted and our shoulders shrugged, thinking that this strategy would prevent our heads and faces from getting wet. Our strategy, obviously, did not work!

Just as predictable as the sun rising from the east every morning, the rain ceased the very moment we arrived at the fitness center’s front-door overhang. This kind of phenomenon is typical.

Wet but not dripping wet, we toweled off shortly after entering the double glass doors and directly after scanning our ID tags at the front desk. No electronic confirmation that we were paid members, no towels. The receptionist didn’t say that, that’s my assessment.

Not being able to do any run training for a week or so, mainly because of her head cold, Janet began her usual three-mile run/walk routine on one of the treadmills while I began a quick tour of some of the weight machines. I indicate quickly because six or seven machines into my workout, I remembered that I failed to close our sliding glass doors in our condo prior to leaving.

Noticing that the rain had picked up considerably, pouring actually, I ran the half mile from the fitness center to our condo across the street just to check and make sure that the rain wasn’t coming through the screened patio area onto our laminate flooring. It wasn’t, by the way, and all was well except for the fact that I was now wet from running in the rain.

Our two felines were pleased to see me, if only briefly, but sad when I had to promptly leave  with one of our old towels and our oldest car. Not trusting the weather any longer, or my blundering forecasts, I thought it best to drive back to the gym, pick up Janet, and then drive her back home – saving her from the certainty of getting wet twice.

The only fly in the ointment was the nearby traffic signal that had evidently died due to the driving rain. Not being able to take the short route to the fitness center due to the traffic signal’s failure, I was forced to make a U-turn and then drive an additional three miles to reach my final destination, the fitness center. The worse part of the short trip was the maddening drive through the shopping mall area. People are crazy, this I know. They are even crazier when it’s raining.

The end result of my erroneous weather forecast was unintended running and unintended driving.

I’ll know next time to listen to my wife. She’s always right. Just ask her, she’ll tell you.