The Kindness of Strangers...and the Cruelty of Friends

Let us begin by discussing the cruelty part, shall we?

OK, I guess I've got to be honest, it wasn't intentional cruelty. In fact, as a wise philosopher once said, "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame...but I know, well, it could be my fault." (Or something like that.)

The saga begins at the gym at 5:30 in the morning. I sometimes like to warm up with a brief walk on the treadmill before lifting weights, and it happened that my friend Katie was running on the next treadmill over. For the purposes of this tale, you need to understand that Katie is one of those people who is gifted with flawless running mechanics; she runs marathons for fun, and never ever gets injured. Her form is a textbook example of the type of poetic fluidity and seemingly effortless grace that makes running look fun, and makes a shambling, syncopated oaf like myself wish that he was a ponytailed young woman.

No wait, that didn't come out right. What I meant to say is that I wish I could run like that. Yeah, that's what I meant.

Anyway, we got to talking and I mentioned that I was thinking about doing a bit of running later in the day. Katie, being an enthusiastic evangelist for the sport, said, "Why don't you just run three miles on the treadmill here this morning." I said I'd think about it, completed my warmup, and went off to do my weights.

As it turned out, I didn't get back to the treadmill until it was almost time to leave for work. But I figured I'd have time to run one mile, so I jumped up on the treadmill and began to jog. I was feeling a little sluggish after the weights and exerbiking I had done, so I set the machine to a pretty slow pace.

I had gone about a quarter mile when Katie hopped back up on the treadmill next to mine. She turned to me and said something to the effect of "Ha ha, slow runner! Your pitiful efforts nauseate me and are beneath my contempt. I laugh at your weakness, and pity your foolishness. I shall now demonstrate my superiority by finishing a mile before you do, despite your quarter-mile head start. Ha ha!"

Well, that's the way I remember it, anyway. She (and several impartial witnesses) seem to remember that I was the one who issued the challenge to see who could finish the mile first, and that absolutely no insults were uttered. She swears that she was just being supportive, and had no motives other than to encourage me to run fast.

She started running effortlessly, with that maddeningly smooth stride. I could hear the treadmill's controls beeping as she inched the speed upwards. I countered by turning my pace up a notch or two. Hers beeped again. And so it went.

When I reached .6 miles, she was only a few hundreths behind me, so I decided to go ahead and reach for my top speed -- and I cranked it up. I was feeling pretty good, and flying along at a tempo that was well beyond my normal distance running pace.

And that's when the hamstring went "ding!" My right leg began to tighten up, and was threatening a full-blown rebellion. I knew that I had irritated it badly, but I also knew that I could probably force myself to keep going if the stakes were high enough.

But they weren't. There was nothing on the line here other than my male pride and manly sense of self-esteem. There was no need to be a macho martyr here -- even Marty McFly knew when to back down rather than risk a dangerous confrontation. I stopped the treadmill, conceded the race, and limped away to nurse my sore leg. As I hobbled off, I could hear Katie laughing and calling out "Look at the girly-man! Are you going to go home to cry in your pink fluffy pillow, girly-man?"

Or something like that. (She -- and the aforementioned witnesses -- swear that it was something more along the lines of "Terry, are you OK? I'd be happy to get you some ibuprofen or an ice pack...are you sure you're OK?")

Anyway, the point is that my hamstring was not feeling all that zippy when I met my brother at the track for our sprint workout later that day. I had talked Tanner into joining us for some sprinting, and even though it was quite windy, it appeared to be warm enough that we'd be OK running without winter gear.

Pat's idea was that we'd do a continuous relay for 11 minutes, with each of us running 300 meters per leg. The object was to see how much total distance we could cover in that time. So here again, we have an example of abject cruelty disguised as a brotherly attempt to encourage a healthy activity. But he knew I was hurting, and sure enough, the end result was additional pain in my sore hamstring. And to add insult to injury, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up to about 50mph during the time we were on the track. When our 11 minutes were finally up, we were all pretty chilly. We were planning to do more after that, but decided to call it a day at that point.

Pat went home. Tanner and I went to Taco Bell for dinner. I was wearing my running gear of course (no pants pockets), so I just shoved my wallet into the pocket of my fleece jacket and went on into the store. I guess that I got so involved in my conversation with Tanner (a spirited debate over whether foreign sweat shops were a good thing or a bad thing) that I didn't notice when my jacket had drooped enough to let the wallet spill out onto the floor. So after getting my fill of spicy-cheesy-beany goodness, I simply drove home and hung it up for the night without ever giving another thought to where my wallet might be.

I noticed its absence when I woke up the next day, though, and called Taco Bell as soon as I got to work. They didn't have it. So, I spent the next few hours calling credit card companies, etc., and trying to remember what other wallet items needed to be cancelled. Do I need to worry about bad guys using my library card? My insurance cards? And as fate would have it, there had been quite a bit more money in my wallet than I usually carry -- how would I deal with the sudden loss of $22.50?

But then, at about noon, my phone rang. It was the night manager from Taco Bell; he had secured that wallet for safekeeping, so the morning crew at the store had no idea it was there. He had found it when they closed the store, and had decided not to call me then because it was so late at night. But as soon as he woke up to get ready for work, he let me know that I could pick it up at the store later in the afternoon. Whew!

I took off work early and zipped over there to pick it up. Both the manager and his assistant came out to chat with me and to tell me the entire story of how they found the wallet and tracked me down. It warmed my heart to meet these great gentlemen, and to see that human kindness and civic sensibility are alive and well in our community. I really had not expected to see my wallet again, but I truly believe that these guys never thought of anything other than returning it to me. I offered them some reward money, but they refused to take it, and offered me a couple of warm smiles instead. I left there feeling really, really good.

In fact, I wasn't even mad at Katie or Pat any more.

Anyway, this incident occured at the Taco Bell at S. Wadworth and Cross Dr., just north of Southwest Plaza. I don't usually endorse individual fast food restaurants in this column, but I'm making an exception here -- Please patronize this fine establishment, and give my warm regards to the evening crew that saved me an awful lot of worry and effort. Thanks, and have a great day!