What the Hell Was I Thinking - Guest Post

GUEST POST:

Sometimes I'm pleased to find musings from my favorite author in my in box.  Here is his latest offering. 

This is from Jay Yurth (Amazon.com).

 

I got cleared by my doctor last Friday to exercise, after three weeks of just eating junk food and watching tennis on TV. I ran Friday, right after that eye doctor’s appointment and it felt good. It had been three weeks so I only went 2 and a half miles before I was pooped. Then I played tennis with the gang for about 5 hours on Sunday. So, I was feeling great today, ready to start to lose the 20 pounds I packed back on.

 

Well, this morning I did my crunches and headed out for a 5 mile run. As I ran down Farrington Highway towards Walmart, only a block from my house, I saw a car a half block up, stop in the right hand lane heading my way. It hadn’t pulled over to the side, so it initially looked like car trouble. Oh, OK!

But then I see a woman running out of the car carrying what looked like a baby. OH Crap!

Then I see the driver door open and a man get out, leaving the door wide open. The woman ran over to the wall and crouched down and the man ran after her. I was still too far away at this point to know what was happening but I figured a medical emergency was in progress. OHH Crap, I gotta help!

So I jogged a bit faster and I turned off my MP3 player. As I got closer I see the man trying to pull the baby from the woman’s arms and I could hear her screaming, “Let go, get away from me.” OHHH Crap!

So I took off my head phones and MP3 player from my hip clip and ran even faster, directly at the crouched man, yelling in my most loudest authoritative voice to, “Get away from her”. I got 3 of those out and my throat still hurts.

He didn’t look very big as he was crouched down, and I figured in that split second, that just the vision of a man running toward you, yelling at you, very forcefully, would deter you.

Well, that was not what he was thinking evidently.

He jumped up, turned and lunged towards me as I was still running up to him. OHHHH crap!

It was at this point that I noticed he was a young man, in his early 20’s probably, and man, did he work out !! He was buff. I could see the guns he had for arms and a 6 pack stomach showing through his tank top. But, he had ear rings in his ears so that instantly negated his manliness to me. ( I got nothing against ear rings in men’s ears consciously, I’m just saying that I take “man points” away for that at a subconscious level.)

So, as he lunged and said, “What are you going to do?”  I knew he was going to throw a punch, so I threw one too. OHHHHH crap!

I guess he went for my ribs as I went for his head. He moved his head enough that I hit him in the shoulder pretty hard. Thud.

He stopped swinging, squared up his shoulders and with a surprised look on his face, again asked,” What are you going to do?”

I said, “You don’t want to go to jail.” (for the life of me, I don’t know why I said that)

He then tries to push me back with a push to the chest, but I am sure I out weight him by at least 50%, and he again says, “What are you going to do?” (he didn’t add, OLD MAN. But I bet he was thinking it)

So, I stand my ground and said, “Just get in the car and leave man.”

He pushes me again in the chest (OHHHHH crap!) and says, “ That isn’t even my car.”  Upon reflection, that was kinda funny.

I absorbed his push and took what I wanted him to think was an intimidating step towards him and it was at this point that the woman runs back the car with the baby.

It was also at this point that I noticed I had my sunglasses on and I was just about to rip them off and fling them to the ground, expecting a fight and not wanting to be hit in the eye with glasses on, when he also turns around, runs and gets behind the wheel of the car, as the woman is sitting in the back holding the baby. What the hell?

I walk towards the car and notice there are about 8  to 10 cars all stopped just watching, but no one has gotten out to help.

He closes the door and the woman says to him as she was crying and holding the baby to her chest,” I am so done with you.”

She looks at me and says, “Thank you.”

They drive off.

A commercial utility truck of some sort does a U-turn  in the road and asks me what happened. I said I was defending a woman and a baby that I thought was in danger from this man, but she got back in with the guy anyway. Then he also drove off in the  direction they went.

I gathered up my head phones and MP3 player and as I started running I noticed that my heart rate was really high so I slowed down. I don’t need a heart attack.

Then I thought about what might have happened if that right handed punch of his would have hit me in my left eye, you know, the one I just had surgery on to remove my “Kissing Pterygium”? The thought of plucking shards of plastic out of my tender eye just gave me a shiver.

Anyhow, I feel like I did my good deed for the day but at age 54, maybe next time I should think a bit longer before I act, you know, muster up some of that wisdom us mature people are supposed to have.

So, I think I will log this one under “What the hell was I thinking.”

Why are there so many entries under that title?