Don't Run

Melissa and I were on our way back to Minnesota after visiting her parents in South Carolina, for Thanksgiving. Ten hours on the road was enough for the day; we were tired and stopped for the night at the rest area near Henryville, Indiana. I had recently built a bigger bed in the back of our van and purchased a new, more comfortable mattress. Man, we slept great!
Although I love walking with Nova Mae in the morning, I did not relish the thought of climbing out from under the covers of our new, warm, comfy bed. “Nova is asking you to get up,” my wife said, nudging me with her elbow. “Come on, Tom. Get up. She needs to go potty.”
I got out of bed, put on my jeans, a flannel shirt, my North Face, and stocking cap. The temperature on the dash board indicated it was 27 degrees outside. “You need a heavier coat,” Melissa suggested. Unfortunately, I was fooled by northern Minnesota’s very mild fall weather with daytime highs in the mid-forties when we headed south. I failed to consider it may not be so nice upon our return in late November.
I fastened the leash to Nova’s collar. “This is the only coat I brought,” I confessed “Come on baby girl, let’s go,” I said to Nova while quickly closing the van door before a lecture on preparedness could begin.
At first, it wasn’t too bad outside, of course the wind was currently at my back. The auto parking circled the rest area building. I figured I would walk about six laps around the perimeter of the auto parking area. The first lap went well, although it was cold walking into the wind. Nova tugged toward the van, “We’re doing six laps Nova,” I said. She gladly kept going.
Nova enjoys these walks and frequently stops to sniff the smells in the grass. I find myself often saying, “Leave it, Nova,” while giving a little pull on the leash. Usually she will let it go, but sometimes she is more insistent to sniff about. Giving a firmer tug on the leash, I said, “Come on, Nova. This is our second lap – you’ve already sniffed all those spots and it’s too cold for messing around. Let’s go!” I didn’t have any gloves with me and my hands were really starting to get cold
The wind blew hard in my face causing my eyes to water. As we rounded the corner toward the van, Nova paused to see which way I would go. “We’ve only done two laps,” I said. “We have four more to go.” Tears were streaming down my cold cheeks, causing them to sting a bit even with the wind at my back. Still, we pressed on starting lap number three.
Less than half way into lap three, my hands were really cold. I was trying to pull them up inside the sleeves of my fleece jacket, but it was too awkward, especially holding Nova’s retractable leash. “This is it, Nova. This will be our last lap; I’m going back to the van. Just then Nova started walking faster, almost running.
“You wanna run, baby? I’ll run with you,” I said. The faster I ran, the sooner I would get back into the warm van. I was doing pretty well keeping up with Nova, although she wasn’t running nearly as fast as she’s capable.
We rounded the last corner. I was pouring it on; giving it everything I had in the final sprint to the finish line – the warm van. We were on the final stretch and that’s when it happened. I saw it coming, but couldn’t do anything to stop in inevitable.
A darn squirrel ran into the road ahead of Nova. It was as if he wanted to join the race to the van. “Nova, LEAVE IT,” I yelled as I tried to slow down. But it was too late, my words fell on deaf ears. Naturally, since I was running too, Nova Mae assumed I wanted to chase the squirrel with her. She gave a strong lunge forward, pulling hard on the leash. I felt my torso getting ahead of my feet. I should have let go of the leash, but I didn’t. Instead, everything was getting faster; I knew I was going down. To make matters worse, I was running downhill.
Despite my high forward speed, the world seemed to start moving in slow motion. My brain was well-aware of the situation, and I had very detailed thoughts. “Run faster,” I said aloud, thinking if my feet could just catch up to my chest, I would be able to bring myself upright, but I was no match for the speedy canine. Instead, I saw the concrete getting closer. As my body was closing in on a forty-five degrees angle to the Earth, I remember noticing the pavement’s coarse finish and thinking, “If I don’t save myself fast, that’s going to shred the flesh on my palms.”
If I could get my left hand on top of the hard green plastic casing of the retractable leash, I could slide on it and save one hand. But Nova lunged forward again, jerking the leash out of my hand. I started thinking, “Don’t hit your head, Tom. Do not let your head hit the pavement.” I honestly thought how good it would be to be wearing a football helmet at this point.
My feet were still trying to run as I clung to a glimmer of hope for recovery. But just then I felt my foot catch an uneven seam in the pavement. There was nothing more for me to do, except prepare for impact.
With my brain still functioning in slow motion, I began using my pilot skills. “Lower the landing gear,” I said as I reached my hands forward. At this point, I was pretty sure I looked like a baseball player preparing to slide into home plate. I could feel my flesh being ground away as my palms made contact with the pavement. “Man, I wish I was wearing gloves,” I said.
Next my knees landed on the concrete. “There goes a perfectly good pair of jeans,” I thought. Then, I felt my feet hit the ground behind me but it was weird. I felt like I was sliding on the tops of my feet. It seemed like I slid for a long way, finally coming to a rest.
I laid motionless on the cement. “Am I alive,” I asked myself. “I don’t think I hit my head,” I said. “But did my face hit the street.” I felt around my face and then looked at my finger. “Hmm, no blood. That’s a good sign.” I could have laid there even longer, but suddenly thought, “What if there’s a car coming? I need to get up now.”
Just as I was trying to get up Nova returned to lick my face. “Are you alright, Dad? That was a nasty fall. What happened?”
Still lying face down on the ground, I looked up into Nova’s eyes, and slowly said, “Get. Away. From. Me.” Nova stayed by my side anyway. As angry as I was with her in that moment, I was still glad she stayed with me. I stood up to begin the physical inspection.
First, I felt around my face and head. I looked at my fingers, again finding no blood.  I examined my palms, expecting them to look like ground hamburger, but they really weren’t too bad. They weren’t scraped; the wounds were more like punctures, and they weren’t bleeding either. I turned my hands over, “How did I land on my palms, but managed to scrape the top knuckles on hand, and top of the knuckle on my right thumb?” Perhaps after the initial contact I lifted my hands, shifting my weight to my chest and knees.
Next, I checked the front of my North Face jacket; it had a couple of scuffs, but no tears. My jeans were not ripped or shredded as I thought they would be, and my knees did not hurt at all. “I guess my denim jeans saved my knees,” I said. Then I looked at my shoes. I scraped the canvas on top of my shoes and ground down the rubber edge on the tips. Strange. I considered all the injuries I could have sustained, and yet, nothing really hurt, or was stinging. I felt I was saved by guardian angels.
I leaned down and picked up Nova Mae’s leash and we continued walking back to the van. “Did you see that squirrel that jumped in front of me, Dad? He did even look where he was going,” Nova said. “I almost had him, Dad, but he ran up that tree next to the van.” Nova kept talking, but my mind was elsewhere. It was strange that I wasn’t hurting. I started wondering if I actually fell or just imagined it. I was really cold now and laying on the ground didn’t help! Nova and I continued toward the van.
Once inside the van I told Melissa what happened. She had a barrage of questions “What? Why were you running? Are you okay? Are you bleeding? Did you hit your head? Is Nova okay?”   
“Is Nova okay?” That question threw me for a loop, after all, it was Nova who put me on the ground, not the other way around. “Yeah, Nova is fine,” I answered sarcastically. “And the squirrel got away, so he is doing okay, too. I have no doubt, Nova would have had him except she was dragging a 190-pound man on a leash behind her.”
Although I didn’t feel any pain right after I fell, my hand started to throb as I warmed up. Maybe being so cold had slowed my metabolism, and sense of feeling. Melissa got the first aid kit. My palms started to bleed a little. My wife handed me a wipe, “You need to clean those cuts.” My palms really stung as I wiped the wounds clean.  The packets of antiseptic wipes reminded me of those little towelette we used to get when we ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken.
We had not had breakfast yet and I was hungry on top of being cold. “Boy, KFC sounds really good right now,” I said.
“What? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head,” my wife looked deep into my eyes. She said she was just checking my pupils, but I think she was flirting with me. Next, she dressed my wounds with triple-antibiotic ointment and band aids. All the band aids made my hands look much worse than they really were. After treating my hands, and warming up more, my knee started to burn.
I rolled up my pant leg. There was quite a red patch just above, but adjacent to my knee cap. “How did I scrape my leg without my knee touching the ground first?” This whole fall did not make sense. Melissa wanted to look at my knee for ‘medical reasons,’ but I think she just wanted to check out my legs. “There’s no time for flirting. It’s not bleeding and doesn’t need a band aid,” I said while unrolling my pant leg.  “Besides, we still have ten hours of driving to get home. We need to get moving.”
As we drove north toward home, my fingers started to ache and my arms were feeling the effects of the fall. My neck started getting stiff, too, probably from holding my head up so that it wouldn’t hit the ground. I wanted to stop and rub some Aspercreme on my sore muscles, but my ego was getting the best of me and I didn’t want to admit I was sore.
Then I started wondering, “Why do I have Aspercreme with me anyway?” Hmm. “Maybe I can’t take a fall like I did when I was a teenager.” That bothered me a bit; am I getting older and didn’t realize it? “Naw,” I said to myself. “If I fell like that when I was fifteen, I still would have skinned my hands and knees. I’m doing just fine.”
We made a few stops on the way home, and I had time to get out and walk around. I was feeling pretty good again, although my hands still hurt.
Finally, around 9 p.m., we pulled into Superior, Wisconsin. Melissa had a photo order to pick up at Walgreens on Tower Avenue. It was cold outside, and spitting snow. I parked on the far side of the parking lot by the grass so that Nova Mae could have a little break, too. The snow was starting to accumulate in the grass, but not on the pavement yet. “Can we go for another run, Dad,” Nova asked.
“No,” I snapped with a scowl. Meanwhile, I kept an eye out for squirrels. “Come on, Nova. Go potty and get back in the van. I want to get home before the roads get bad.” I put Nova back in the van, and then went into the store to get Melissa’s order.
I was in the store for a while so I sent Melissa a text explaining: “They’re busy, and the lady had trouble finding your order. I have it now, I’ll be out in a minute.”
Melissa replied with just two words and a smiley face: “Don’t run.” Smart aleck.
Just outside Walgreen’s front doors, I waved at Melissa in the van. She waved back, so I knew she was looking. I took off running toward the van; hopping and skipping my way down the sidewalk while waving her pack of photos in the air, as if to say, “Look at me! Look at me running in the snow!” In front of the van, I jumped in the air and did a few spins. Then I walked to her side of the van and handed her the photos through her window. “Did you see me running, Honey?”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “You’re a dork,” she said laughing as she rolled up her window. She took the envelope of photos and started looking through them.
As I was walking back to my side of the van, I slipped and almost fell in the wet, slippery, snowy grass! But I caught myself on the hood of the van before going down and stayed on my feet. I quickly looked at my wife in the van. Fortunately, she was buried in her photos and didn’t see what almost happened. “Ain’t nobody gonna tell me not to run. I ain’t old yet...,” I muttered as I climbed into the van.
In final hour driving home, my back started to ache. I wondered if I had pulled a muscle while jumping and spinning in the air, or when I slipped in the grass? I could sure use some of that Aspercreme, but she would definitely notice it’s distinct aromas.