Beyond the hallway is a large room filled with booths around its edges. My eyes scan the lettering on the booths of left wall. Straight ahead on the far wall is what I’m looking for.
A lady greets me at the booth, I hand her my waiver and fish my driver’s license from my wallet. This the same procedure that I’ve perfected to a science from years past with one minor exception.
“That’s not too tight?” she double checks before she fastens the bright orange band around my wrist. She holds the band snugly with two fingers as she looks at me waiting for my response.
“It’s fine,” I say, and she snaps two white plastic pieces on the wristband together, securing it in place.
As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, the memories of people running fill my head. I can see the sea of bobbing heads stretching into the pre-dawn horizon as if it was only yesterday. Trying to clear my mind is fruitless, as another wave of visions and memories wash ashore. I stare blankly at the dark wall, sigh, and close my eyes. I can almost hear the parade of footsteps surrounding me and joined with a chorus of breathing.
I get out of bed, walk around the house, muttering, “I can’t fall asleep,” realizing that race day giddiness is setting in. One more time, I collapse into bed and close my eyes.
“By the time we’re finished, we’ll be awake,” one lady says to her friend. I am but one person in this crowd of runners. You can peer down from an overpass and see a road full of them, with no comprehension whether they are ahead or behind you. Will I wind up on the road below within the next mile or was that where I came from? I have no clue.
Traveling an indirect route from the start into Tomorrow Land is filled with music. Every several tenths of a mile has either a band playing or a van setup with a nearby speaker system perched on black stands. One of the earlier music setups, purple black lights line the road, causing people’s white socks and hats to glow.
“Let’s stop and grab some coffee,” a guy next to me jokes to his friend as we pass a gas station.
Shortly after mile three, three guys spaced twenty seconds apart zip by in the opposite direction towards the finish. Runners cheer, and commentary from behind me ensues.
One guy reminiscences, “I use to run like that many years ago.”
A lady admits, “I’ll never run like that in a million years.”
A few people out here are a little odd to say the least. A girl is dressed up as Snow White wearing a long flowing gold dress and a race number affixed to her shirt. Another girl has a duck tail protruding from her back side with small wings attached to her arms. Taking the cake, a girl is dressed up as Tinkerbell, complete with shiny, transparent, butterfly wings that glitter purple and green. Her curly hair has small silhouettes of Mickey Mouse heads in pastel red and blue. My eyes sink from her hair, to her wings, past her green pants, and down to her hairy legs.
Wait a minute.
I scoot ahead of her, and realize that she’s actually a guy. He’s also carrying a purple wand with a star mounted on the end.
In the middle of nowhere, road bends to the left. A solid of wall consisting of hundreds of bright orange cones divide the road on the right. People are bored and some secrets are revealed.
“If you run the 5K on Friday and do the Goofy on the weekend, it’s called the Dopey,” a guy with a country accent says aloud. By the Goofy, he’s referring to:
- Run a half marathon on Saturday.
- Run a marathon on Sunday.
“I didn’t know that they had a 5K on Friday. I should have signed up for it too,” another guy asks, “It’s called the Dopey?” Take an extreme and add one more. If they threw in an ultra marathon on Monday, I’m bet you that idiots–excuse me–very determined people would actually sign up for all of them.
A lady chimes in, “The Dopey isn’t official.”
Approaching the Magic Kingdom, the music is replaced with cheering. People line both sides of streets cheering runners on. A castle stands tall in the distance against a backdrop blue sky shrouded with gray clouds. The road twists and turns, taking us past bystanders giving people high-fives with soft Mickey Mouse hands and past merry-go-rounds. Looking up you see a cast of characters waving at you from the balcony of Cinderella’s castle. Passing under archway transversing through the castle, a small army of photographers snap pictures as the road serpentines downhill.
Leaving the castle, the magic starts wearing off. There is no music, no cheering, just the long road ahead to an over-sized golf ball miles away. The sun inches itself above the gray clouds casting the first rays of sunshine upon us, warming things up. My socks are soaked and the brim of my hat is dripping with sweat, and I think, “Thank God this is a half marathon.”
Runners cheer and applaud a DJ who breaks the monotony and boredom of running in silence with music. Over the speaker he says, “Why are you cheering for me? You’ve guys are doing all of the work; I’ve only turned around 180 degrees is morning,” meaning that he turned around to face the runners on their return trip to the finish.
He adds, “I’ve also had a couple of donuts… and some Gatorade.”
On an expanse of road, a guy runs with some blue words printed on the back of his shirt. Most of these people have amusing sayings printed on them or indicate some person or cause that they are running for. His read: It was her Goofy idea. A lady runs alongside of him with pink lettering on the back of her shirt: It was his Goofy idea. My eyes locate their bright orange wristbands indicating that they should be committed to an insane asylum.
The golf ball appears, and I pass in front of it. My legs become slightly sore and I begin to slow down, but the techno dance music blasting from speakers propels me through Epcot. I round a U-turn sling-shotting me past a cast of more characters, gravitating me towards the larger than life golf ball.
In true fashion, a choir dressed in gold sign Gospel music. I hearing the words “Alleluia” in the lyrics, and I truly feel the meaning of it.
Pluto, a human sized dog character, stands several yards on the right side from the finish line. I go out of my way to give him a high-five before crossing under the dual digital timers clicking the seconds away and passing over a chirping red mat.
1/12/2008 - Walt Disney World Half Marathon
Miscellaneous Information
Total number of finishers: 12,283.
Finisher information based on the race results from the Active.com on 1/12/2008.
Weather: Low - 60oF; High - 79oF
Weather information from the WFTV weather forecast on 1/12/2008.
Some chase dreams and a few chase half marathons with marathons. One day at a time, one mile at a time. Blame my co-worker, the one started me on the running craze, for convincing me that this would be a good challenge to do in late January 2007. Tomorrow it’s time to make my dream a reality.
For those that ran today the Disney half-marathon, congratulations, and for those that will run the Disney marathon tomorrow, I wish you the best of luck. As with any race, you can’t simply decide to run one on a whim because it requires months of preparation and work.
Now, I’ll see what happens when I take a good week’s worth of running and condense it into one fun-filled weekend, running a half-marathon on Saturday followed by a marathon on Sunday. This will be by first and last attempt at doing something this asinine.
This goal is not bounded by a finishing time that I’ve set for myself, but merely by the fact that I can cross the finish line and say, “I did it.”
Our level enthusiasm wanes from Saturday to Sunday when I meet my running buddy near a diesel powered set of rotating spotlights. “We better head to the start earlier this time,” he says. The sheer number of people sitting on the ground or standing around talking has doubled from yesterday morning.
He tells me the status of his legs. “They were a little sore from yesterday, but this morning my legs were really sore getting out of bed.” I exchange, “Mine were sore yesterday, but they’re fine now.”
Before I leave my parent’s home, my mom asks, “How long will it take you to finish?” as I’m unable to drive let alone sit in the passenger seat with ease after doing one of these things. One of them will have to drive me home. Given that I ran yesterday, I admit, “I have no idea–sometime under seven hours.”
She pries, “Five and half hours?”
“I seriously don’t know.”
Back at the spotlights, we make our way to the runner’s area, a large area bordered on three sides by the largest display of port-a-lets. Here you don’t fence off an area with steel gates; you utilize port-a-lets. A gap of missing bathrooms at the far end, marked with two tall checkered flags begin a .6 mile walk to the starting corals. My running buddy and I part ways as he goes to the starting line for the speedy runners, and I veer left to the slower starting line.
Between watching music videos on a large screen, I learn from short presentations that between 100 and 200 people have been running this marathon every year since it’s inception in 1994, regardless if the weather is unseasonably warm or it’s so cold ice forms on the water’s surface in cups of pre-race water. One of this “fifteeners,” coined from fifteenth anniversary of this marathon, is Jeff Galloway, and he makes a presentation. His strategy is to run/walk a 1:1 ratio with his wife for an anticipated finish time of 4 hours and 45 minutes.
As time ticks closer to the race start, I herd myself into Coral E, and squeeze myself forward between groups of people. The crowd begins the countdown, shouting the final seconds from fifteen to zero. Fireworks brighten the sky from the starting line, and some people take pictures with their cameras. Looking behind me I notice that the sky behind me is also illuminated from the faster runners’ starting line located behind me. Passing under the start banner, mounted with four jets of spouting flames in to the air, less singeing than last year, I cross over the chirping mats, and the race begins.
A group of people follow a guy carrying a bright yellow sign with “5:30″ written on it. Several balloons are tied to a wooden stick that the sign hangs from. I notice an older man with “61 years old and still Goofy” printed on his shirt. A lady has, “14 Grandchildren–Wyoming” on hers. Another couple runs together; the husband has, “This was her idea!” on this shirt, and his wife has, “What was I thinking?” on the back of hers.
I begin hearing the music: “Who get the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof.” The Fort Lauderdale running club looks down at us from an overpass, doing some semi-coordinated dancing and hand waving. Runners clap and cheer at them, and they wave and cheer in return. I’ll encounter them two more times during this race.
The first theme park to run through is Epcot. After passing under the over-sized purple golf ball, the course takes you along the edge of a lake. All of the buildings are have an elaborate display of lights. Looking out across the water, reveals more buildings in the distance illuminated with lights. Some have white and orange rotating spotlights piercing the foggy, misty dome of a sky. Dance music pushes everyone through the park.
Before I know it, I’m out on the open road between theme parks. There’s a sign listing prices for parking at Epcot on the left side of the road, and someone comments, “With eleven dollars for parking and seventy dollars to get into the park, Disney doesn’t have to worry about running out of money anytime soon.” Someone agrees. He continues, “The stock remained flat since I bought it.”
Someone asks, “Disney has remained flat?”
“Yeah,” he jokes, “if I buy stock in company x that company would go out of business. Here’s a tip, sell whatever stock I decide to buy.”
Unlike yesterday, the music setups are space farther apart. Every one mile or so there are ten to twenty port-a-lets off to the side with lines of people waiting to use them. Since you can’t make everyone happy, one lady that I’m running next to complains about the restroom situation, saying that there should be more of them. In years past, I’ve seen ladies dash into the shrubbery to use nature’s facilities. Other runners take a detour while running through a theme park to use an out of the way indoor restroom.
A girl runs into a grassy area on the left side of the road, faces the crowd, squats down, and uses natures facilities out in the open. Her running shorts are pulled down just above her knees so you can’t see anything. I try not to look at her and focus on the road ahead, and I hear runners in the crowd comment on her. Hey, when you have to go, you have to go.
“Do you have any talkers here?” a girl shouts from behind me. Being the smarta** that I am I say, “We have a lot of runners here. What do you want to talk about?”
She runs up to me, telling me about a blue shammy that she brought along since she loves sponges provided on the race course but wishes that there were more available earlier. “This has some sort of microfibers in it.” She shows me the blue shammy that she holds in her left hand. I tell her about my water belt that I brought since it was hot and humid running last year’s marathon. “Yesterday’s weather was less humid than today,” I comment.
“You’re doing the Goofy?” she excitedly asks.
I admit, “Yes.”
She confesses, “I did the Goofy last year. You’re doing pretty good.”
“Thanks,” I joke, “Be sure to pop me in the butt with your shammy if you see me walking at mile 22 to get me moving again.”
As it turns out, I’ll start walking much sooner before that, starting a series mind-body war games of convincing myself to start running again.
She tells me since she’s doing intervals, running with walk breaks, she looses her talking partner. I talk to her about running the NYC marathon this November, and she tells me about running the Marine Corps marathon last October. It’s the fourth most difficult marathon course in the U.S. due to its hills. She adds, “You’ll see the finish line towards the end, but they make you run around some more before reaching it.” How torturous.
Before entering the transportation center, I set my sights on a thin girl wearing a pink shirt and white hat. Safety pinned to the back of her shirt is a blank running bib with “4:30″ written on it with pink marker. She wears a water belt strapped to her waist with a small water bottle mounted on her right side which she sips from frequently. As I enter the transportation center, I zone out the crowd cheering and applauding runners, as half of me is lost in my own little word, and the other half has my sights set on the 4:30 girl.
After several minutes of passing a water station, the girl in pink momentarily stops and looks behind her, exclaiming “Oh s***!” Her right hand reaches for her water bottle, but it’s missing. “Damn it!” She runs back searching for it. I’ll encounter her shortly before approaching Animal Kingdom sans water belt and water bottle.
Two spectators, alternate the following running instructions, “Left! Right! Left! Right! Left! Right!” I can’t help but laugh. Prior to entering the Magic Kingdom, the ceiling of fog has cleared, leaving my socks and shoes are drenched in sweat from running in this humidifier for the past hour or so.
Cinderella’s castle stands tall in the distance. A runner stands in the middle of the road while another runner takes a picture of her. Other’s take pictures of the castle off on the right-hand side of the sidewalk. The sky behind the castle is blue with the upper half draped in one large gray cloud. The road curves to the right, taking us around the outside of the castle and into a small quaint village.
Disney characters are scattered throughout the village. The merry-go-rounds are turned off. Once again, I look up at the balcony of Cinderella’s castle. A prince and a girl with red hair look look at each other, then look down at us and waive. Runner’s waive at the characters on the balcony, and we run under the archway through the castle.
As I see a pirate ship with a person dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow commanding it, I hear someone say, “There was a line to take a picture with him yesterday.” This race is unlike others I do there is a touristy feel to it. People will stop running, and wait in line to get their picture taken with a cast character.
Leaving the Magic Kingdom, I find myself cruising down a road between the theme parks devoid of anything interesting to look at. Pulling off to the left side of the road, I take my first walk break.
Stooping down, I reach down and retrieve the chocolate Gu pack that I shoved in my shoe pocket. Tearing open the brown top, I taste chocolate, taking me to a far away place for a minute. I descend back to the asphalt and rejoin the runners.
At the next water stop, I plan on filling up my water bottle that I’m carrying with me. Grabbing two cups half-filled with sport drinks, I dump one into the other, creating one full cup. In a half jog, I attempt to fill a water bottle, but half of the water water sloshes out of the paper cup and goes everywhere but inside the bottle. At later water stops, I learn that it’s better to stand off to the side when trying to do this.
I think to myself, “Let’s walk for a minute,” and I pull off to the outside edge of the road where more walkers are magically appearing. After the minute is over, I tell myself to run the next nine minutes.
An ambulance slowly drives down the left side of road with flashing lights and blasting its horn, moving runners to the other side. The ambulance stops slightly in front of me, and a paramedic climbs out of the passenger’s seat, briskly walking to one of the water stations.
To be continued…
1/13/2008 - Walt Disney World Marathon
A paramedic briskly walks across the road to a volunteer at a water station asking, “Where’s the patient?” She says, “I’m not sure.” Five minutes later, two paramedics ride towards me down the dividing line in the road. An annoying siren emanates from their bikes.
The next stretch of road features music from artists spanning fifteen years which I find rather interesting and original. I hear a voice announce, “1994,” followed by a song from Sheryl Crow. As I make my way down the road, the music worsens as years transition to present day. A voice says, “1997,” and I hear the song “Barbie Girl” by Aqua. I rouse myself from a walk to a run, escaping the horrid music, only to arrive to a Justin Timberlake song made in 2001. For the present day song, they play “Superman” by Soulja Boy, censoring all of the curse words in the song.
“My shorts are soaked,” a girl comments to someone. Despite the initial humid morning, the clouds keep the sun behind closed doors and the temperature remains cool.
My walk / run ratio crumbles to mostly brisk walking. When I do try to run, I feel one of my muscles in my lower back leg begin to twitch.
There is a Clif Shot handout station at mile 16 where volunteers hand out an assortment of flavors, I grab an apple pie flavored one and try to get the package open, but I’m unable to. “This stuff tastes like a**,” a girl says about the flavor that she selected. She looks around. “Can I say that?” At a later Clif Shot handout station, I manage to open a raspberry flavored package. It’s the foulest stuff that I’ve ever tasted. I don’t bother trying to suck down the rest of it and chuck the package to the wayside.
As I begin to run, my leg begins to cramp. I stammer, regain my balance, and begin walking.
This is my third marathon that I ever done, and no matter what I do one of my legs always cramp up during the race, forcing me to walk. This is very aggravating considering that I’ve followed my training schedule and hydrated more than my previous two marathons that I’ve done. Heck, I’ve even carried my 32 oz. water belt with me, refilling it at water stations along the way, and brought three packages of Gu. Does that help? No.
A person carrying a bright yellow sign with words “5:00″ runs by. Time doesn’t fly; it runs past you.
I’m sure that there’s some secret to running a marathon without having your legs cramp up during the race for the genetically deprived non-runner. Running my longest training runs that I’ve done in the pre-dawn hours, my legs never cramped up. Why does this always happening whenever I run a marathon? I would love to run just one marathon–just one–where my legs cooperate the entire way.
Entering Animal Kingdom, six natives beat on Congo drums, the drummer in the middle yells out, “You can do it!”
I begin experimenting running downhills. When I start running too quickly, my legs rebel, cramping up in the process. If start at an extremely slow jog, I can eventually pick up speed, until my mind resigns myself to walking. In front of a snow covered man-made mountain roller coaster ride, I see a green bridge at a higher level than I am. There must be a hill to run up, so I’ll just walk until I reach the bridge.
Reaching the bridge, I notice a cluster of people walking. I continue walking with the people who are walking. People scream from the nearby mountain as a roller coaster plunges them downhill. A crowd encourages you to keep running, and I start off at a slow jog, gradually gaining speed, only to resume walking a few minutes later.
A long stretch of road separates Animal Kingdom from MGM studios. I’m going to label this road the Most Boring Place on Earth. You share one lane of road with slow moving cars, with miles of orange cones separating people from machines. Anything remotely interesting to stare is few and far between. For entertainment, there’s a guy wearing a Tampa Bay Lighting hockey shirt mock-playing an orange guitar to music. Scattered signs planted on the side of the road share useless trivia:
- You blink you eyes an average of 4,200,000 times a year.
- On average Americans eat 18 acres of pizza.
- There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India.
Even though MP3 players are not permitted on the course, I see people wearing them. The white wires sway to and fro from their ears. I envy these people as they are immune this level of extreme boredom.
A guy walking alongside of me talks on his cell phone. “Yeah… This is a joke… I’ll try again next year… At mile 24? I’ll try running through there… Don’t worry, I’ll fake it.”
Half of the people are now walking, with faster people slaloming around the walkers. Others stop to stretch against a sign post or guard rail.
My left ear begins to feel stuffy.
My boredom is relieved by music from a live band. A procession of walkers/runners coming from the opposite direction pass me and turn towards MGM studios. Ten to twenty minutes later, I reach the U-turn, and head towards MGM. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the person that once carried the “5:30″ sign making his way to U-turn. I see the stick with the balloons tied to it, but the sign is missing.
I must keep moving; I can’t let him catch up to me.
The sun finally comes out around 10:30 a.m. More than anything, I want this to be over with. I can’t help but notice transportation buses driving by. There’s a band playing on the side of the road in front of a school bus. A school bus. Yes, a school bus. Something with wheels. Something that doesn’t involving moving your feet.
Encountering the Fort Lauderdale running club cheering section for the third time, I hear the words from a song playing on their boom-box, “I gotta make it through this.”
Some kind of Broadway music plays throughout the MGM theme park, lulling me to sleep. The only interesting thing say out this theme park is a fake backdrop of New York that you run towards.
Walk, run, walk. Wait, I swore that I passed those people a minute ago. I pass the two girls in the aqua colored shirts, the guy in the yellow shirt with the black writing on it, the lady with the short hair. Slowing down to a walk and finding motivation to start jogging again, I pass them again.
I convince myself to try to jog through narrow areas as not to create a bottleneck. Areas are typically narrow around parking lots for some reason. Jogging through that area, I hear someone cheering for me (everyone’s name is printed on their name tag) and my minds says, “Ah, let’s run for another minute!”
On the return trip to Epcot, there’s boardwalk consisting of wooden planks that zigzags near the water. An ambulance is parked on the side of the boardwalk with its back doors open. Three paramedics huddle over a runner who collapsed on the ground with two on either side of him. I see an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The third paramedic stands over him holding an IV bag.
As I get closer to the finish line the cheering changes. “You almost have a mile left!” Keep moving. Eventually I hear, “You have a mile left!” One of the workers encourages us with such conviction that it seers in your mind forever, “You’re making history! You’re making history for yourself!”
People find some extra energy deep down within to run towards the finish, I try to follow them. My legs falter. I just keep walking.
Soon, I hear, “You have less than a mile!” I swear this is the world’s longest mile that I’ve ever dragged myself through. Finally, I hear, “The finish line is just around the corner!”
Thank God.
A choir dressed in vanilla robes sings, “Alleluia.” My thoughts exactly.
Two guys next to me try to convince each other to run to the finish line for a good photo opportunity. “C’mon. Just run twenty-five steps to the finish.” The other guy says, “I can’t run anymore.” He prods, “Just more your feet twenty-five times, and it’s done.”
I begin my slow jog and hold that slow pace across the finish line. Although the feeling of accomplishment is strangely absent, there’s an overwhelming relief to be done.
A random group of finishers who can say, “I did it.”
1/13/2008 - Walt Disney World Marathon
Miscellaneous Information
Total number of finishers: 12,964.
Finisher information based on the race results from the Active.com on 1/13/2008.
Weather: Low - 50oF; High - 77oF
Weather information from the AccuWeather weather forecast on 1/13/2008.
After I finish the marathon there’s always a surprise for me at the end, and this is the reason that I’ve run less marathons than you have fingers on one hand. I’m sure that there’s a secret to avoid this, but I haven’t figured out how.
There’s a long trek from the finish line to get back to my car. This involves tasks such as getting your timing chip removed, getting some space-aged aluminum foil to wrap yourself with, getting your finisher’s medal, grabbing a plastic bottle of sports drink, and getting your picture taken with the medal.
“Go to aisle 68,” I say, “cross over the intersection, and my car is on the right side of the aisle 39.” My parents stay in front of me as I slowly hobble to my car. Fishing my long car key from my water belt, I hand it over to my mom as I’m no condition to drive.
I’ll explain why shortly.
“No, no, I’m over on the very left side of the parking lot.” We slowly proceed to the very left of the parking lot and walk towards the intersection. “It’s the seventh car to the right.” My parents see it. Good, I can go home now.
My car is a month old, and I’d prefer not to get my car dirty as it would sour the new car smell permeating from it. So, I’ll throw all of my sweaty clothes that I can into the trunk.
“Dad?”
He says, “Yeah.”
“Can you take off my shoes?”
He walks to the back to the car, crouches down to untie my shoes, and helps me take them off. He disappears to the front of the car to drape towels over the passenger seat.
I look down at my feet and see my sweaty socks. Well, I can get these off myself. I slowly bend down to remove them. My legs hurt a little in the process, but I manage to peel the sweaty socks from my feet and toss them into the trunk.
Next, I start removing the safety pins attaching my race number to my tank top. If I leave the safety pins attached to my sweaty tank top, the pins will eventually create rust stains on my shirt. I remove one safety pin and feel weird. Removing the next safety pin, I feel like I’m going to throw up. This hasn’t happened before. After removing the third safety pin. I feel like I need to walk this wave of nausea off. I take a couple of steps away from my car and collapse. Collapsing on the asphalt parking lot is also new.
Now, here’s what happens after every marathon that I’ve run. On my previous two, this occurs when I attempt to sit in a car. My body is going to punish me for running / walking 26.2 miles on this Earth. “Remember, traveling that distance is for cars not people,” my body would say. Since my body can’t speak, it will communicate that message to me in a different way.
I have a premonition that it will happen a few seconds before my body will slap me around. My body says, “You know that leg that you’ve been trying to run on for the past three hours?” There’s a momentary pause before my left leg is going to cramp up. “Well, don’t do that anymore!” My left calf muscle begins to cramp, and my left leg flexes inward as I growl, sending a volley of colorful expletives into the air. It hurts so bad, and there is absolutely nothing that I can do to stop it but whine like a little girl.
My mom gets my dad’s attention, and he reappears at my feet.
“What’s wrong?” he quickly asks.
“Cramp… left leg…” I whimper.
“Where?”
“Calf,” I whimper again.
He straightens out my left leg, and it instantly feels better. My body counters that move, causing another part to uncontrollably writhe in agonizing pain.
“Thigh,” I squeak.
My dad does something else, and my body counters again.
No, no. Not the feet. Oh God, that hurts!
I yelp, “My foot, toes.”
“Relax,” my dad says doing something with my toes. If he wouldn’t have been there, I would be in one big ball of pain. I’m laying on the pavement rigid with my dad holding my left leg. My body has stopped delivering messages for the moment.
I discover a new feeling. “My right thigh is twitching.”
“Let’s get you up,” my dad says, “give me your hands.” He extends his hands in front of me.
“Are you kidding?! That’s going to f***ing hurt!”
He says, “We’re going to have to you get up.”
Let’s delay the inevitable, “Give me a couple of minutes.”
My mom gathers the loose safety pins that I dropped. Heaven forbid I impale myself on them while trying to stand up. She reappears with a red umbrella shielding me from the sun. Standing up, walking to my car, and sliding into the passenger seat, should not be a daunting task, and I lay there on the pavement thinking of the less painful way to accomplish this.
Using my arms, I sit up and say, “I could slide myself over to the passenger door, but how am I going to lift myself into there?”
My dad conjures up an idea, “Cross your arms.” He moves around behind me, and lifts me off of the ground, interlacing his arms in mine. Lifting me up from the ground, I walk back to the trunk and remove the final safety pin from my tank top.
It takes me about five minutes to sit in the passenger seat.
“Grandma has more mobility than you,” my dad jokes.
“Thanks.”