Orange Jumpsuits

As many of you might remember, my word for the year is discipline. In my quest to live a more disciplined life, I haven't gotten very far, but my journey is at least 3.5 miles (5.6 km) farther than it was the day before.

Recently, I was talking to my friend J at school. She said, "Girl, you gotta lose some weight!" (You can say things like that to your real friends.) I gave her that look, like, "You better look in a mirror!" (Yet another thing friends can do.) She then qualified her statement with, "Yeah, we both do."

That's when we got this brilliant idea that since her daughter would be at swim practice everyday after school, I would go meet her during practice, and we would walk the nearby track. We worked out an agreeable schedule and planned to meet Tuesdays and Fridays. I don't know if she believed I would follow through, as that is so against my nature, but she didn't know about my search for a more disciplined life.

So I think she was surprised when I actually showed up on her doorstep for our first walk. (Her daughter's practice had been canceled.) Shortly after I peeled her up off the sidewalk, we began our trek. (I don't use that word lightly.) If I had known what I know now about her neighborhood, I would never have shown up. I figured we would walk around the block a few times and come back home to gab by the pool, but an hour later, I found myself asking myself if there was such a thing as exercise-induced insanity and if such an insanity would get me off of a murder charge.

Members of the jury, Mrs. V is not at fault for her actions. She has never had that much oxygen running through her brain at one time. What else could you expect her to do but lash out at her companion who forced her walk up four hills that were so steep, she could see the asphalt at eye level. Mrs. V was just trying to impress upon her friend how much she wanted to go home when she throttled her.

It could work! Okay, maybe not.

Regardless, when we reached the middle part of our trip, I saw this monstrosity of a hill carved out of a quarry and thought, "There is NO WAY she is going up that!" Sure enough we did. As we reached the summit, I was thankful to see an equally steep downhill slope. In my mind, I was grateful I had survived and that the worst part of the trip was over. The problem with my thinking was, I had never been to her neighborhood before. I had no clue how many hills there were or that the only way back to her house was back up that same hill we had conquered before. "Oh, naivete, your name is Mrs. V." Note to self, drive the neighborhood before you walk it.

This brings us back to the moment I saw her house again. Having no idea that her death is imminent, J bravely announced, "You just walked 3.5 miles."

I hope the jumpsuits in prison are orange. I think the black and white horizontal stripes will do nothing for my figure!