A Facebook Rant Wasn't Enough

KB7/10/2019 11:58 PM

TLDR: I went for a run for the first time in months and frustration/pet peeves ensued. This would’ve been much better suited for a Facebook status.

Yesterday after work, I impulsively decided to go for a run (first mistake) in New York City (second mistake) less than an hour after ingesting a full meal from a halal cart (third mistake). Mind you, this was on a walking/running path; I wasn’t attempting to dash down the sidewalks of Manhattan while weaving through drooling droves of spatially unaware tourists like a fucking psychopath. Although I have fantasized about reverse red rovering right through the fragile, interlocked hands of one of those families of five who walk horizontally on a sidewalk, taking up its entire width while blissfully preventing others from passing them.

Maybe unintentionally launch the weakest child face-first into the concrete, tripping him out of his Crocs and shattering his Nintendo Switch to pieces. Maybe not. Maybe if I blasted through them at the perfect angle and speed, I could knock over all three of the kids at once, teaching their parents an important lesson on urban sidewalk etiquette and dissuading them from giving birth to a (fourth mistake).

Anyway, this path was adjacent to a separate “bikeway” specifically designated for people riding bicycles. Simple enough.

There was even a railing dividing the two lanes. How convenient.

A smooth six or seven minutes into my modified run (referred to as a “light jog” or “intermittent speed walking” in some cultures), my left earpod slipped right out of my miniature orifice (formerly an “ear canal”), as it typically does when I start to sweat. This is one of the many reasons why I’m adamantly anti-exercise and anti-airpod, but I’m not here to complain.

For visual reference:

As you can see, that 20-week-old fetus growing on the side of my head (I’ve been procrastinating the abortion) leaves me with little to no wiggle room (I live in New York so I’m not in a hurry) when it comes to an earbud — and perspiration is its kryptonite. But I’m not going to just workout without headphones like a fucking psychopath. Besides, I could still hear Joe Rogan’s soothing voice perfectly fine with my other ear, even though the left cord erratically bouncing off my chest upon every stride was excruciatingly annoying. Nevertheless, I persisted.

8 minutes into my run: I pass an oversized copper beehive structure that makes me viscerally uncomfortable and irrationally angry.

I don’t know why, but its general presence consumes me with ire and internal pain, which isn’t ideal during a cardiovascular excursion. I think it might be a CIA mind control experiment, but I’m no conspiracist.

10 minutes in: A pair of extra large pedestrians in their professional garb — possibly an unhappily married couple — refrains from waddling in a single file line on the narrow path that’s meant for exercise and not casual foot travel, causing me to Barry Sanders juke past their girthy nose guard bodies while their gout-stricken feet put no effort into moving out of my way. I’m not Barry Sanders so it turned out to be an incredibly awkward and difficult series of maneuvers that made my blood boil with the heat of a thousand suns.

(This is NOT a photo of the actual perpetrators, but I did take the time out of my day to capture a picture of the first people on the path who were even remotely comparable. Think much larger and more diagonal.)

13 minutes: Joe uses the word “counterintuitive” incorrectly. This mistake disappoints me immensely but the masculine discourse in his podcast continues to motivate me to keep running and endure the pain.

15 minutes: My stomach starts cramping up. Badly. I contemplate quitting but I don’t want to look like a little bitch in front of dozens of strangers I will never see again in my life.

15 minutes, 10 seconds: I realize I forgot to wear my decoy knee brace/cousin’s Syracuse lacrosse gear, so I couldn’t pretend that my pathetically slow pace was due to an ACL tear I was rehabbing. This only frustrates me more. “I’m an INJURED ATHLETE,” I wanted to scream as loudly as possible as my bow legs trudged down the crowded trail. I wasn’t and I didn’t.

17 minutes: I’m still running so, by default, I’m fucking miserable.

~19-22 minutes: I’m not the type of person to wish death or suffering on anyone, but for the past 24 hours I’ve been envisioning the brutally slow and torturous demise of the sociopathic gremlin cyclist who completely disregarded basic human decency and zipped past me on that narrow walkway, grazing my ribcage with his handlebar and aggressively ringing his little cyclist bell as he sped off out of sight. I kid you not. I would’ve preferred if he stabbed me in the eye sockets with a rusty Huffy spoke or beat me to a pulp with an old Mongoose peg. Like getting flicked in the back of the head by the classmate you hate the most, the rage I felt from his handlebar barely contacting my skin sent me into a fit of rage that can’t be achieved from someone actually hurting you. I don’t know. I might be overreacting, but maybe have some fucking awareness and ride your bike somewhere else, like a fucking cycle path. Sorry. Had to get this off my chest for my own mental health. Also, he was a white man if anyone was on the fence about validating my burning hatred toward him.