Humbling Challenge

Since I have a couple of gunboats that have been apparently mistaken for feet, my wife has decided to kill me with her personal Bataan march towards a goal of one MILLION steps by mid December. While that might be fine if she had informed me a couple of years ago but she must not have noticed they are selling pumpkins in the stores now. So that leaves us with nary two months to complete 8,000 steps per day to help achieve her stupid foot-fungus goal.

Oh sure I applaud my wife’s healthy ambition to pound the pavement and carve off the kilos, but how did I get sucked up into this Dr. Scholl’s delight of daily drudgery? As long as I watch my salt intake and clean up after my slime trail, I kind of like being the resident slug anyway. Street walking in the shadows is fine if you’ve got the legs for the job but it’s my calloused feet and personality that rub people the wrong way. If only somebody could invent a machine to handle the burdens of BIpedal locomotion, I would get on that Midnight express train in a hurry and turn into a ‘BUY’ guy with bells on to seek freedom!

So low and behold at an estate sale last week, the ‘Big Wheel’ himself must have heard my incessant whining and prayed to shut me up. Yes, opportunity rolled over my toes that morning, in the form of a drop dead price on a stealthy, 2+2 on the floor, black electric wheelchair with a seatbelt and cool joystick to match. Now this is what I call living – why didn’t somebody tell us new-age upright primate gladiators about these horse-less chariots before? Once I clean the dirt off between all of its ‘moto-toes’, even I can glide through a million steps in the next couple of months. Better still as a bonus, with this ride I can circle the wagons and DO donuts in the parking lot while I eat glazed ones too!

I mean honestly, chasing the mail truck and the neighborhood wolf pack down the street has never been so much fun, though now climbing stairs and reaching for the choco peanuts on the top shelf is an unbelievably sweaty pain. Currently I’m perfectly healthy, but whenever I ROLL in that chair, my TOOTSIES literally look and feel powerless and it’s very humbling. Unlike the truly challenged who need these wheelies to move-on with their lives, when I tire of complaining about my insignificant toil, I can simply CHOOSE to get up whenever I want. So my choice now is to WALK HAPPILY with my wife, however long she needs, and wherever she wants to go while I still have the chance. Oh and don’t worry about my milk chocolate covered ‘Robo-Rolo’ - I promise we’ll find it a good home with a much less whiney and far more worthy CHAIRity in need!