More On Running

I guess I should write something about running. It's just that running is so irrelevant. It's such a "so what?" thing. Related story follows.

I like to put my day together like a puzzle in such a way that there is no backtracking, and no wasted gas. For this reason, I found myself in WalMart yesterday in my running clothes, an orange top and gray shorts. I'm a very bad WalMart shopper. I inevitably end up with a bunch of stuff I don't need to buy. Once again, I find myself in the fabric department, AS IF I need any more fabric. My fabric situation is ridiculous. (I'm a quilter) Anyway, I had decided to make something for a family member for Christmas, and was in the process of gathering up the required notions, when a GUY pops into the fabric, a bit too cheerful, and says to me, "HI!" As is common to my personality, I mumbled a nearly undetectable reply and turned away - hoping to send some negative body language. Something I must add is that body language does not work with all people. For some reason there are people in this world who did not study body language, or their parents did not teach them body language, or they have bumbled their way through life under the supposition that they don't need body language, or for whatever reason, they just don't use it. I think this was one such person. I wandered around a bit more getting what I needed, and wound up by the cutting table at the same time as him, as he was plopping down a bolt of orange fleece. He grinned at me and indicating my orange shirt, he said, "THANKS FOR THE INSPIRATION!!" I am using caps here because everything he said was so emphatic. Again, I used the same type of reply, barely audible acknowledgement, and turning away, a negative, or at best neutral reply - the negative and positive cancelling each other out. A short lived relief of his pursual ensued, and once again, at the end of my wanderings, I am faced with the guy again. He brightly asks me if I run much, but this time I had a terminal response in that I did agree that I ran a bit, and then turned away, and left the store.

Really it doesn't make a point, except to say that running is irrelevant. At the end of the day - it was only 55:00 out of a 24 hour chunk, and can't be quantified as anything. So you're a runner - so what? There are a lot of runners. What else are you? Is the rest of you good and honorable and kind? Do you make anyone else happy? Do you show your people that you love them?

Don't know, but at the end of the day yesterday, I had two feelings. One was an unsettled feeling about a man shopping for fabric, and the other was a satisfied feeling that I had bathed my chickens just before the cold weather arrived.