Cling Wrap Pants

You know you’re a forty year old athlete when…you forget your pants.  This is the third time for me in as many weeks.  Maybe it’s an early sign.  Three out of the last five times I’ve brought clothes to go running from work, I’ve forgot my running tights.  I know there’s a difference between tights and pants but, the word “pants” seems to fit better and it’s funnier.  Pants.  See?  It’s been less than 25 degrees out each of those days I planned on running over lunch at work.  Needless to say, some sort of leg covering is sort of necessary.  I’m not a card carrying member of the Polar Bear Club.  I don’t garner any sadistic tough guy feeling from cold franks and beans (There’s Something About Mary).  While it’s only temporary and personally embarrassing, there’s still shrinkage to consider.

“Son of a!” is my usual exclamation.  This phrase is usually uttered after three complete inventories of the contents of my backpack while bending over berries in the breeze in the employee restroom.  That is then followed by the horrific thought that if I forgot my tights, I might have forgot to lock the door.  I turn to check.  Fhew!  Then I laugh wondering what if someone outside the bathroom door heard me say “son of a!”  Then I chuckle inside wondering what if someone outside heard me laughing in the bathroom.  Then there’s a brief thought of actually going outside in 17 degree weather with only shorts to protect Johnson and the Nuggets.  So far, I’ve had better sense.  I guess if you’re driving through Cincinnati’s Eden Park when it’s sub 25 degrees outside and see me running bare legged that I have taken the step into senility and you’re welcome to shout “hey dufus, put on some pants” from your car window.    

With this track record, I know that it will be cold again in the coming weeks; I will want to go for a run over lunch; I will forget my pants again.  So, like a kid with idiot straps on his mittens, I need to prepare for my own stupidity.  Since I obviously don’t have the brain power at seven o’clock in the morning to remember seven items of clothing, I could write a list: socks, shoes, tights, shorts, long sleeve shirt, hat, and jacket.  I could bring a spare set of winter running clothes and leave them in a cabinet.  Or, there’s always the Glad Cling Wrap in the employee kitchen, if I could trust myself to remember to put my work pants back on before I walk down the hallway.