9/1/10

As I earn my living on a day-to-day basis, I often find myself impugning the intelligence of various people whom I've never met.  My behavior often assumes a form such as - "You stupid so and so, why don't you learn how to merge?!?  Asshole!"  How funny then that, despite numerous so-called objective tests that purport to have found some merit in my intellectual capacity, sometimes I find that my own intelligence is lacking.

I drove from the bottom edge of Kentucky back to Michigan today.  The drive was an uneventful affair for the most part.  I did plenty of shouting at motorists who obviously couldn't hear me along the way, but this is par for the course.  The highlight must have been the final ten miles that just happened to carry me into a rain storm.  I was a bit frustrated at the time, given the somewhat slow pace of traffic, but at least I wasn't in Texas.  Driving in the rain with the freaks down there is a whole other kind of frustrating.  After dropping off my empty trailer at the dairy and giving my paperwork to the night dispatcher, it was time to hit the gym for a workout.  Yesterday was supposed to be 'leg day' but I was unable to make it to Novi, for obvious reasons.  Tonight I was back home, so here we go.

I got to the gym (or health club or fitness center or whatever they call it) around 9:15pm.  The parking lot was overflowing with cars.  Screw that.  I drove down to the local Meijer store and bought some new wiper blades for my car.  Somehow it seems that, when you drive your car in the rain, you become accutely aware if your wiper blades suck ass.  After I replaced mine I spent some time in my car listening to the ballgame.  Then, satisfied that the crowd at the gym had likely thinned out some, I drove back up the street to commence with my workout.

Just before I got back to the gym, the Tigers scored in the top of the eighth inning and tied the game.  Well hell.  There's a big fancy high-definition television in the locker room at my gym, so I plopped my ass down to watch the finish of the game.  The place is open 24/7 and I had nowhere to go tonight, so screw it.  Of course the game had to go to extra innings.  After the Tigers finally managed to lose in the tenth, I walked over to the locker area and started to get ready for my leg workout.  I set down my gym bag and took out my pants.  Then my shirt.  Then my notebook with tonight's workout scratched inside.  Then my sho... Dude, where are my shoes?  It appears that, in my haste to leave town on Tuesday morning, I forgot to put my running shoes in my bag. 

I don't do any running these days but those shoes are still part of the uniform.  Back when my ankles were somewhat functional, I bought a pair of Brooks Beast running shoes from a fancy little place in Ann Arbor.  Since that time I've managed to endure a few more injuries and I've managed to get a few years older, so the running is (at least temporarily) out of the question.  The shoes do still provide a great deal of support for walking and lifting though.  My work shoes for the time being are a pair of Dr. Martens.  My company will be buying me some work boots within the next few months here but, for now, my Docs are the only shoes that I have with non-slip soles.  Trailers with metal floors and the occasional milk spill are enough to require a fella to wear non-slip shoes.  I haven't felt compelled to buy anything else to wear on the job thus far, so here we are.

I spent a minute trying to decide if I should just go ahead and work out in my work shoes.  They're fairly comfortable for work, but what about strenuous exercising?  They certainly don't seem to offer the same level of support as those running shoes do.  At the end of the day, I decided to take a pass.  For an upper body workout, I could have skipped the cardio portion and dealt with the work shoes.  For a leg workout, I wasn't willing to try.  I have the day off tomorrow, so I'll just combine the leg workout with a chest workout and I'll be back on schedule.  I'll be in the gym for a few hours as a consequence, but that's the price of my own stupidity.