Blasts from the Past
One time when I was sixteen years old, I was driving to school with my sister. She and I were talking and laughing and I wasn’t paying attention when the car in front of me suddenly stopped. I rear-ended him. There was no damage to his car and so I begged and begged that he not file a claim because my parents would kill me. He agreed and we drove off. When we got to the school parking lot, Ginny and I examined the front of my car. There was a noticeable dent where the paint was missing. We skipped first period and sat in the parking lot trying to cover the dent with nail polish. It didn’t work. My parents noticed. I got in trouble. The End.
******
In college I lived with two boys, Neal and Jay. One night Jay and I were sitting at our kitchen table chatting with Neal as he loaded our dishwasher. Then, very casually as he was talking, Neal pulled out the Carpet Fresh box from under the kitchen sink and began pouring it into the dishwasher where the detergent should have gone. Jay and I started yelling out for him to stop, but Neal just gave us this very innocent, confused look. Apparently, he hadn’t read the labels and had been putting Carpet Fresh in our dishwasher every time he did the dishes. It’s a wonder I lived through those years with those two boys… The End.
*****
One time when Chris and I were in graduate school in Connecticut, we moved out to the suburbs and so I started having to drive to work everyday instead of walk. On the first day of this new arrangement, I decided I’d take the Yale campus bus shuttle to the parking lot where my car was parked from my office. It was only a 15 minute walk, but it was cold and snowy and I was lazy. I had never taken the shuttle before and wound up getting on the wrong one. The shuttle headed over to the medical campus, which was in a part of town that I didn’t know at all. It was getting late and I was afraid to get off the shuttle because I didn’t know if another one would come around. So, I rode the shuttle for two hours until the driver finally noticed me and took me back to my car on the other side of town. The End.
*****
One time when I worked at Yale, I was working on a Saturday morning. We had an event where two beautiful floral bouquets would be presented to two performers. Bean was about seven or eight months old at the time and I had him with me that morning because I was just going to run to pick up the bouquets at the florist and then drop them at the school. Very simple. After I’d picked up the flowers, I pulled my car up to the building at the school and parked. I put Bean on my hip and picked up one of the bouquets. They were so big that I could only carry one at a time with Bean. I got one bouquet into the building just fine, but when I was carrying the second, Bean suddenly squealed a very high-pitched war cry and then shoved both of his hands into the bouquet of beautiful (and very expensive!) flowers, pulling away the tops off of a section of flowers right in the middle of the bouquet. Both my hands were full, so I couldn’t stop him. Instead, a co-worker took the bouquet from me and when we got inside, I put Bean down on the floor while my co-worked and I went to work trying to fix the bouquet he had almost destroyed. When we finally got it looking presentable again, we turned around to find that while we were working, Bean had managed to pull the other bouquet over to where he was sitting. One by one, he had pulled the tops off of every single flower in that bouquet. By the time we found him, it was just a bunch of stems wrapped in paper. He was very proud of himself. The End.
*****
A few weeks ago I decided to start a Couch-2-5-K program. So, I downloaded the app on my phone, woke up early one morning, and told Chris I’d be back in 20 minutes. Went out to my garage and did a 5 minute stretch. Then I ran for about 4 minutes and I thought I was going to die. Seriously. I thought I was dying. Then, as I was contemplating whether or not I was going to make it the full 20 minutes of my run, I started running down a little grass hill to cut across the street to the other sidewalk. But the grass was wet and I was in the process of dying and so I slipped. I did one of those slow motion falls where everything is moving slowly except your feet, which are moving so fast they are a blur. I ended up catching myself with my hands just before my face ate it. But the grass was wet and it stuck to me. And I was hot. And I was dying. So, I turned around, waved to my neighbor who saw the whole thing, and then walked home. I was gone a total of 8 minutes and I haven’t run since. The End.
28 Comments
Emily @ EatPlayRead
I love these little stories! Too funny. Thanks for the smile this morning 🙂
Amy
Love these, Katie! The carpet cleaner in the dishwasher had me laughing out loud 🙂
Erin @ Brownie Bites
Let me tell ya, I HATE running. I was able to get myself up to 5 miles at about a 12-13 minute pace (in other words, I probably could have walked at the same speed) and I felt like I was going to keel over at any second. I feel your pain!
ECH
Don’t give up on the couch to 5k program! In 5th grade I ran the mile (one mile) in 18 minutes. A couple of months ago, in preparation for my fall wedding, I downloaded the app and after 9 weeks, I ran my first 5K and have been running ever since. My fiance didn’t quite tell me that the first 5k he signed us up for was an all terrain course…in Hong Kong!
Alaina
Ha, I had so many moments like that in college, seriously…that is too funny. Thanks for making me smile in an otherwise exhausting morning!
Leah
Thanks for the laugh. I started back to work end of last week after my maternity leave and have been down in the dumps. I needed a good laugh. The Bean story was my favorite. I love it!
Oh and I hate running too. I’ve been doing the couch to 5K program for over a year now. I thought I was dying after the first week too so I went back to the couch 🙂
Ashley @ A Recipe for Sanity
Haha! Love it. I hate running, personally…and even my nutritionist says that if you hate some form of exercise, you should just do something else! 😉 These cracked me up, though…especially that carpet cleaner in the dishwasher. You are living proof that having food near this chemicals does not always kill you!
September
I’m a really non-athletic person (and I mean REALLY non-athletic and with a strong aversion to exercise and sweating) and have been my entire life. After my second child was born I decided I needed to hit the treadmill and make some of that jiggliness go away. Five years later running is my mental health therapy and (on some days) the reason I’m not chugging wine by noon. This January I’ll be doing my fourth marathon (and the second time to do the Goofy Challenge!)
That said, I’m not a fan of the C25K programs. They make it seem like it should be easy when the reality is that it’s not. It’s work. And that’s part of what’s cool about it–when you train you learn to push your body and see what you’re capable of. Start with walking…a lot of walking. Better yet, put both kids in the double stroller and when you can do four miles in 60 minutes (if you can do this you’re getting a cardio workout, which will help a lot later) start working in some jogging. When I started I jogged 1/2 mile, walked 1/2 mile for the first two miles, then finished with two miles of walking. Did that for a week, then upped it to walk/jog for the three miles, the week after added a bit more and so on, until I was jogging consistently 2-3 miles at a stretch and finishing with a mile or two of walking. Once you’re doing that it’s really just taking the time to build up gradually to where you want to be. Its unrealistic to think that you can go from not exercising at all to jogging and be successful at it–I can’t tell you how many of my friends start that program and quit by week 2–your muscles, heart and lungs aren’t used to cardio and the whole system rebels.
Amy
Katie, you’re one up on me. I downloaded the Couch to 5k app on my phone 2 weeks ago and have yet to even put on my running shoes. Will power FAIL.
Jesseca
I actually did the C25K program in 2009, and I really thought it was a good program. I had never run before, so it really did get me from the couch to running a 5k, but I think I took a few more weeks to do it. It really is a lot of work, and I was miserable, especially if I tried to do it in the afternoon, rather than the morning. But once I accomplished it, I didn’t keep it up. I started running again this year and after 2 years of not, I was still in shape enough to run a mile and a half without stopping to walk. I highly recommend you keep at it. Some days are better than others, and a lot depends on how much water you drank the day before, and how well you eaten or how well you’ve slept. Mark the other day off as a bad day and try again!
Jen @ Caved In
Ahh running, how I hate thee. I’ve started out slow. I walk ten minutes. For the second ten minutes, I alternate running and walking. I’m working up to running for two minutes at a time. I then walk the third ten minutes. I’m on day 2 and I hate every minute of it but I hate my inactivity more. However I love Zumba! I’ve been doing that three times a week since I found out I was pregnant and it is so much fun. Lots of cardio and I don’t feel as awkward as I would in a gym.
Nikki
Thanks for posting, I needed some laughs this morning. I am a very active person, but I hate to run! We love to bike. It’s so hot here in Texas, but at least on the bike you’re moving enough to get a breeze. I told myself that I was going to wake up early with my man in the morning to get a jog in, but 5:00 comes really quickly. Now I have a stress fracture in my foot and am in a boot, so that’s a great excuse to not get out there and run for now!
Suzanne
I just busted out laughing in my office…thanks for the laugh! 🙂 At least you departed with grace and waved.
My husband told me a story when he was younger about riding his bike in his neighborhood…something distracted him in a yard and as he was looking, his bike slammed into a parked car where he flipped over the handlebars and landed on the hood of the car. He did not even look around, much less wave, got on his bike and took off in shame 🙂
Suzanne
Oh and as far as the whole running thing…let me suggest an elliptical. I love that thing! I have weak knees, so I have to be careful with them and I also have a tendency towards shin splints. The elliptical keeps a lot of pressure off both. When I started working out again, I started off at 15 minutes, went up to 20, 25 and now 35 minutes a day. I normally run 4 miles in a day. And physically I’ve never felt better in my life. It keeps me sane, I feel toned and healthy, and it’s a great stress reliever.
Diana
You shouldn’t give up on running! Try alternating running and walking in 30 sec-1 min intervals. Then slowly increase the run time while keeping walk time the same. If you are feeling tired, then add in some more walking. I hated running when I first started, and it took me almost two years to get up to 4 miles comfortably. Three years later, I am running over 20 miles a week and loving it. Running with my dog helps a lot.
Tabitha @ From Single to Married
Ha! Awesome stories! And good thing you wrote them down so you won’t forget them. Especially the one about Bean and the flowers – I’m thinking you can use that against him when he gets older. 🙂
Katherine Malone
This made me laugh so hard, especially the flowers story and the C25K one – I am about to go and “run” tonight and yep, it’s usually a pretty similar situation for me 🙂
Tina
ha ha….loved this!
Nicole
You are better than me, I wouldn’t have even downloaded the app! Hate running. Hate. It.
Amy @ Serve at Once
This totally made my day.
Diana
I don’t run – ever. Since having Jellybean my only form of exercise is to stick him in the wrap and go on walks. It works for me.
As for carpet cleaner in the dishwasher – did the dishes at least smell good?
Meggie
Hilarious! Every single one of these had me laughing!! =)
Mary
These stories made me laugh so much! Especially the first one and the last one. Those are totally me.
Nate's Mom @ Nate is Great
Each one is more brilliant than the rest! The Yale/bouquet story though. Wow. Make sure to deduct that from Bean’s allowance when he starts getting one. And I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks I’m going to die when I run. I was not built to run. Walk? Fine. Run? I only do that when Nate takes off toward the street.
Rebecca @ The Reluctant Housewife
Once when I was at the gym working out I decided to do this pull up machine. 2 pull ups into it I literally fell off the machine and the weights crashed down on top of each other {loudly}. I laughed, went and found my friend who’d heard the weights from across the gym, and we laughed some more. Then I went back to the machine. Tried again…definitely fell off again. Then I called it quits.=) Your stories are absolutely hilarious!
Meredith
Oh my gosh! My husband keeps asking what’s so funny… thanks for making me giggle!!!
Kat @ Living Like the Kings
hahahhahaha awwwwww Katie…your life sounds like its full of adventures
jenna
Katie, I have to ask: do you do any kind of exercise or workouts? I know you always say you hate to sweat, but you always look so good and healthy! What do you do?