Commuters Hate Joggers

I did not get hit by a car. But the bored, seemingly taunting stares make me self-conscious. Am I holding my hands funny like a stroke victim? Does my head, in this particular shade of red worry them? Does my jiggle make them crave Jello?

Calling myself a jogger after hardly a week, seems presumptuous. I'm jogging, but at what point do I become a jogger? When I have to tape my nipples down like a marathon runner? For all they know, I've been running for years and I prefer being tubby.

Six years ago, when I was actually a jogger, I remember passing a SUV with the driver laughing and pointing in my direction. Remembering that vividly years later seems silly. I didn't ask for this brain, and I'm just most certainly stuck with it.

Angie was a rail thin, Jagger lipped, sixth grader with hair seemingly made to be feathered. She flipped me the bird from a passing school bus, demanded I move my "Big head" so she could see the projector screen in science class, and once in speech class crassly spread her legs while shooting me a defiant wink. Gathering these incidents together like this, perhaps Angie fancied me. Regardless, these are merely a few of the biting memories destined to embarrass me till my last breath.

There is a sunny side to this defective "This is your life" nightmare parade of embarrassing moments; I have similarly stuck memories that make me smile. Visions of smiling faces, smells that make me dizzy, and nostalgic childish teenage antics.

So when you pass someone, anyone on the side of the road, don't point, poke fun, or flip them the bird. Because it might be me, and then I'll go to my death bed unable to clear my noggin' of your mean, mean face.