While I
was on the treadmill today an incident from long ago came to mind. I’m not sure why I thought of this, I suspect
it may have something to do with the sheer boredom of walking on a treadmill.
Many
years ago, I was riding along with one of my high school friends (we’ll call
him “Hank,” which may or may not be his name).
While he was driving I noticed that Hank was beginning to slow down dramatically. We were on a road with a 40 mph
speed limit and he was driving about 15 mph—which is extremely slow in a car.
“What
are you doing?” I asked.
“I want
to see how the people behind me will react,” Hank said. (Okay, “Hank” isn’t his real name.)
I had a
pretty good idea how they would react. And
very quickly my guess turned out to be true.
Cars were lining up behind us. Motorists
were honking. They were making
gestures. When they had the opportunity,
of course, they went around us. But
those who couldn’t go around were not pleased with my friend’s experiment.
Hank shifted
the car into neutral so that we were coasting and it slowed down even more. In the course of our friendship Hank had done
a number of things that surprised me, like the time he jumped out of the emergency
back door of our school bus. You know,
the door that says “Emergency exit only?”
The door that sounds a loud alarm when it is opened? That’s the door from which Hank chose to jump. And he was incredibly calm when he did
it. He walked to the emergency door and
opened it up as if this was the normal course of events. Then he jumped out as the bus was rolling to
a stop.
That
surprised me. And, based on her reaction
(and her language) it really seemed to surprise the school bus driver, too. Hank liked to test the limits of people and
experiences and he was about to surprise me once again.
The
car, in neutral, continued to slow down, the drivers behind us continued to
honk, cuss and make obscene gestures.
Some people are actually quite creative when it comes to obscene
gestures. Have you noticed? Anyhow…
And
then Hank said to me, “Here, take the wheel, I’m going to get out of the car.”
“What?!?”
I yelled.
Unfortunately,
I think my shocked reactions to his behaviors often just served to encourage Hank
because he laughed when I said, “what?!?”
Sure
enough, Hank opened the driver’s side door—by this time the car was crawling
along very slowly—and he jumped out and began jogging next to the car. I can only guess what the people behind us
were thinking. Imagine looking at the
car ahead of you which is making you angry because it is moving very slowly. In the car there is a person in the passenger’s
seat but no one in the driver’s seat.
The person who was in the driver’s seat is jogging next to the car as it
rolls very slowly down a road with a 40 mph speed limit.
Hank
was laughing as he jogged. This was a
funny and, knowing Hank, incredibly interesting experiment, in his mind. I was wondering what in the world I had
gotten myself into and I was concerned about someone from the cars behind us
getting really mad and doing something crazy.
I suspect
if the other motorists could have read my mind they would have said, “Wait a
minute? You’re the one who’s worried
about us doing something crazy?!?” Which,
come to think of it, would have been a pretty good point.
After
about half a block, or so, of running beside the car Hank jumped back in. He shifted the car into drive, accelerated to
the normal speed, and we continued on our way as if this was all part of a
normal day. You know, like the same kind
of normal day in which you jump out of the emergency exit of the school bus. That kind of normal.
The
person on the treadmill next to me looked in my direction because I was
laughing as I remembered this story from the past but I suspect it looked to
this person like I was walking on a treadmill and randomly laughing for no
particular reason. He may have been
thinking, “I hope this guy isn’t going to do something crazy.”
I
wanted to tell him, “Don’t worry, I grew up hanging out with Hank, so, I’ve
already done something crazy.”
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