By the Light of the Silvery (greyish) Moon

It started off as a normal Tuesday. My NEW normal is making Tuesday the night I wreck myself with ridiculous workouts. I have no idea why, it just feels like a good night to knock myself out into oblivion. And I did myself proud tonight. 8 miles, 2 pound weights in hand, and a “go get’em” attitude to beat the band with.

Walking has become my obsession. I love it. The first mile always hurts, because my legs are sore and tight. Mile 2, I start hitting the sweet spot- when I feel like I could walk all night. I start walking faster, more thoughtfully. Standing tall and proud. Mile 3 is when I start questioning if I will make it home unless I turn around soon, a notion I am learning to ignore. It also happens to be a little place I like to call “French Fry Alley.” All the fast food joints are on this mile. It pleases me to no end to smell all those places and know that I am finally stronger than that.

Mile 4 is when I ask the critical question:

Do I have to pee, and if yes, where is the closest bathroom?

Last night, the answer was yes, so I stopped at my church to pee. (I knew there were classes going on and people were there.) I knocked on the window of my minister’s office and shouted through the glass “can I come in to pee?” Poor guy. He shook his head laughing and let me in the building. Normally, I would have stopped to talk for a minute. But tonight, dripping with sweat and working off of old deodorant, I decided it was best for me to move along. I quickly peed and hit the road again.

The church having been my halfway point, I turned around and headed back home. My MP3 player blaring, I walked and wiggled and walked some more until I got back into French Fry Alley. My willpower starting to wane because of hunger, I decided this was a good place for me to jog. So I ran for an extended block, holding my 2 pound weights in each hand, pushing me forward. Because of traffic, I had to stop. And while I stopped I made another decision.

My hands hurt, and my arms needed a break. So I placed my hand weights in my fanny pack and kept moving. I keep my not-so-fashionable fanny pack rather loose so I can move it around as I need to. For fresh sticks of gum, repeating a song on the MP3 (something I am very prone to do) or to get a tissue so I can blow my nose if it’s chilly. But it was empty enough to put my weights in. Problem solved. And my arms were extremely grateful for some rest.

Until I encountered a new problem. I have to say I think my saving grace was it was dark last night. Because as my walk was going toward home, and I was lost in American musical theatre land, my weighted down fanny pack was slipping downward and hitting me in the goody patch.

This being quite uncomfortable, I turned it around so the big fanny pack part was resting on top of my fanny. And I kept hustling for a few more blocks. I thought it was odd that the fanny pack kept slipping down further and further. Apparently, my hips have shrunk quite a bit since the last time I adjusted the waist band. And pretty soon the fanny pack had slipped down to almost the bottom of my bottom.

Little did I realize what had also happened: it had taken my shorts down with it.

Yep, I was losing my drawers as I walked along the main drag in Danville. My booty hanging out for all to see the answer to a pressing question.

 Boxers or Briefs?

 (please, like I could stand boxers. I was wearing white boy cut shorties. Saying they were white is a stretch, though. More like grey- with a faint recollection of ever being white. I’m happily married and trying to lose weight. Underwear is not a priority. As long as they are clean and stay up. I’ll invest in my skivvy collection when I’m at goal.)

So there I am, bopping down a busy street, with my black workout shorts hanging down off my butt crack. Pretty soon, I stopped at the water fountain outside of Custard Cup to get my normal drink, and as I bent over the fountain, I realized I could feel a wonderful breeze. Unfortunately that breeze was not in a place I wanted to feel it and I realized my under-covered rear was on display. I grabbed the saggy fanny pack and tried to pull it back up. Which made me give myself an atomic wedgie because everything was falling down.

Standing next to the Custard Cup (which is now closed for the season), I began pulling. I pulled the weights back out of the fanny pack. Pulled up the shorts. Pulled out the wedgie. Pulled the last bit of pride from the ground. I was practically stripping on the main drag of my hometown. I’m not proud, but it happened.

You may think that the moral of the story is to not put your weights inside your fanny pack. Perhaps it is.

But most importantly, I learned that I have lots of gravitational pull on this earth.

Heck, I created a full moon!