Tales from the Treadmill

It's that time of year again. The time of year that when the alarm clock sounds it is can't-see-shit dark outside. My wife and I fumble in pitch black when making the bed, misjudge and kiss chins and earlobes, trip over babies on the way to the light switch. The overhead bedroom light is too hostile that early in the morning, so we turn on the stairwell light. Once there's a light source, we go our separate ways. One of us heads upstairs with the babies, the other stays put to run on the treadmill. I go upstairs, turn off the light behind me.

I'm upstairs, in the loft. The babies are settling as I'm rounding out my first set of weights. I can hear the belt of the treadmill whirling, my wife's feet pad, pad, padding along. Suddenly, the belt is whirling alone. I'm not all that concerned. She steps off sometimes to do whatever it is she does. So I continue to focus on the weights in my hand, lifting them up and down, working my biceps.

Metal, falling to the ground. A dull thud followed by several other dull thuds. Unaccounted for sounds scream up to me from downstairs.

"Honey?" She doesn't answer. Oh god. My feet stutter down the steep loft steps as fast as they will go, dodge tail wagging babies through the living room, and take the more leveled set of steps down into the basement more quickly.

I'm in the bedroom. The treadmill belt is still whirling. My wife, however, is gone. As I make my way around the bed, I see the top of her head, then her body. She starts to stand. Her running tights, on one side, expose half her butt. The other side of her running tights are covered in dog hair.

"Are you all right?! What happened?" I say.

She's running in the dark. Decides it's too dark. (No shit.) Steps off the treadmill to turn on the bathroom light. Going from darkness to light, she's blinded. She means to step onto the side of the treadmill and instead steps onto the belt...which is moving 6.2 miles per hour.

It's mayhem from there.

As her foot sweeps out from under her, she has just enough time to grab onto the treadmill's side handle. So, she's lying there, on the treadmill, right? The belt is slowly pulling down her pants, taking some skin with it, as she takes her time deciding the best course of action. Don't call out to your wife to come turn the treadmill off. That's ridiculous. Instead, decide the best option is to let go, fly off the end, and let the belt's propulsion throw your body into the bed. Yeah, do that. And that's what she does; hence, one side of her running tights being covered in dog hair.

Running is dangerous business. Treadmills are no joke. But, I swear to Christ, I'm still laughing.

Three Minute Matters

A fifteen minute walk outside my front door leads to a trailhead. The trailhead dumps out on to a wide dirt road where other trails offshoot. I like walking the road. I like the crunch, crunch, crunch under my feet. I like to watch the babies go off roading and return to me with their adventures dripping off their panting tongues, sticking in their fur, dirtying their paws. The babies and I have been walking this way for eight years.

It took me eight years to lose the basset.

The basset headed left, down a ravine; I headed right, towards the water. I wasn't worried. I knew she'd catch up. She always does.

I glanced behind me, waiting to see the tip of her white tail, listening for the jingle of her tags. Nothing. The mutt and I headed down the ravine, the last place I saw her. She wasn't there.

Weirdly, my wife texted me to see if I was okay. I told her I couldn't find the basset.

According to text time, I held my shit together for three minutes. In three minutes I transformed from a rational human being into Something Wasn't Right. Did she fall into a hole so dark and deep I'd never find her? Was her harness caught on a branch? Was she hurt? Bleeding? Was she snatched by a mountain lion? Did someone take her? Where did this someone come from?

My wife told me to go back to the place I lost her. I started walking back up the ravine when I heard barking. Frantic, nervous barking. As my head crested over the top of the ravine, there the basset sat, barking at me like I disappeared on her.

My wife knew all along the basset wasn't lost. I, on the other hand, lost everything in three minutes.

What's in a Name?

I told myself I would write a post every Monday. A fine idea until Monday rolls around and I need to find something interesting to say. What if I don't feel like being interesting? If my name was Paris Kardashian, my namesake would automatically make me interesting. I could be as dull as a butterknife yet Gawker would print my name thirty-seven times in one week. Snoop Dog would invite me to his barbecues.

And I'd go.

Not that securing invites to celebrity barbecues has ever been my aim. Although watching Jay Z throw Justin Bieber in the pool would be hilarious. And using the bathroom after Mariah Carey to find she doesn't wash her hands might be worth ten thousand dollars to TMZ.

Not that selling dirt on celebrities is my aim, either. Although ten thousand dollars grants a lot of my wishes. And once wishes are granted, doesn't it make it easier to kick open the immoral door to secretly take photos of Jennifer Aniston wearing nothing but her bikini bottoms--I imagine Snoop Dog's barbecues get intensely wild--for millions?

You bet it does.

If only I had a more interesting name.

Possibilities

We've discussed it many times, in crisp morning fog and under the sweltering afternoon sun; sitting in restaurants with white tablecloths and lounging on our battered leather sofa. I tell my wife to never discuss it with anyone but me: no one knows her like I do, they'll not understand. Does she want to be the woman in the room people whisper about? But she doesn't see it that way. When I claim it is scientifically impossible, she shrugs and says it is possible, her only proof originating from fictional books, popular television shows, and her dreams.

My wife mentions her elaborate escape plans, how we need to arm ourselves, how when it happens I'm to follow her blindly, at least once a week. Giving full decision making control to my wife makes me uneasy, but it will never happen so I agree. Sometimes it's easier to just let her get it out, uninterrupted, so we can move on to other things, like if we have enough money to get a new sofa, or how lesbians in movies seem to sleep with a lot of men.

I think about searching for a support group, a place where I can stand up and say, "Hi. My name is ____, and the love of my life, the heart inside my heart, thinks the zombie apocalypse is possible. I cannot convince her otherwise. What do I do?" Sympathetic faces will look back at me. Some will look at the floor, knowing all to well how if feels to try to reason with the unreasonable, finding it hard share another person's struggles when they have so many of their own. But some will look at me and nod, and in that instant I'll feel better, less like a melting iceberg housing a climate change naysayer.

Science better damn well prove me right because the thought of a bunch of brain-eating, blood-soaked, raggedy undead outside my door, groaning, clawing to get in, makes me want to piss my pants and swallow my tongue. Let's hope my wife has a plan for that. Just in case.