“Here, take a wipey”

So…I fell during my run today.  Yes, it’s becoming a habit lately that I’m not happy about.  I seem to do just fine when I’m running around my familiar sidewalk-less area – no curbs and little traffic.  When I run in a more unfamiliar, city-like area, I’ve narrowed my “fall behavior” to the following criteria:

• Includes busy sidewalk
• Includes lots of people
• Includes lots of baby carriages
• Includes lots of darting puppies and children

With lots of walking/running company at lunchtime, I ran the sidewalk as it was available, but sometimes ended up having to yield to others and switch to the informal pathway next to the sidewalk.  You know, where there are rocks and other evil things waiting to jump up at a runner.  Not as roughed up as before, I still landed pretty hard.  Two moms with their carriages and darting children (who I was yielding to in the first place) dashed over to me, “Are you OK?”  The young boys (maybe 4 years old) stood there with their mouths open.  I’m thinking they thought my fall and subsequent scrapes were pretty cool.  Wouldn’t you think so if you were a 4 year old boy?

I was frustrated with my newfound klutziness as I gathered myself together, inspected my new wounds, and answered, “Yes, I’m fine, thank you” to the moms.  To that, one of the moms dove into her bag and offered, “Here, take a wipey”.  That changed my mood completely.

How could I not smile?    Don’t wipey’s fix everything?  So I did what anyone would do....I wiped.  And then I finished my run.