Dave Parker

Compulsion: In psychopathology, an irresistible impulse to perform some irrational act.

Yesterday the weather was great again so I went inside and swam in my relentless pursuit of compulsive over-exercising.  It was, of course, Take A Swim Day which falls in between Take A Hike Day except on Friday, when I swim for the second day in a row.  I’m not sure how I justify this to myself. It has to be violating some rule of compulsive over-exercising.  Normally I don’t do the same kind of exercise two days in a row for an excellent set of reasons that I can no longer remember.

Naturally, rain was in the forecast.  The debacle of Saturday still fresh in my mind, I loaded my car with a clean shirt and pair of pants and an extra set of socks.  I also borrowed an umbrella from my hosts, excellent Dr. Death and his lovely wife, who have endured my presence for 10 days for reasons that I cannot fathom.

I arrived at the park and strode purposefully up Hamburger Hill which was mercifully rivulet free and suffered no ill effects.  The track through the woods was kinder as well.  The shrubbery was dry and standing upright.  I splashed through some standing water, still with no terrible consequences.

Pressing on, treading carefully, mindful of wet roots and muddy inclines, I hiked with the sure-footed confidence of an Andean mountain goat until I slid my foot under a firmly anchored vine, lying hidden across the trail as carefully concealed as if it had been planted by a South Asian guerrilla.  I stumbled trying to free my foot, pirouetting with no grace whatsoever, arms in the air in an apparent bid to summon celestial help, recovered – almost – and went down again, this time backwards.  I have a need, apparently, to fall in all four directions: backwards, forwards, and to both sides.  I only have to fall to my left to complete the circuit.

I snuck a quick look at my backside.  I had a mud slick that ran from my ass cheek to my ankle.  I made no attempt to clean my hands.  The umbrella was, as you might imagine, somewhat bent.

This occurred at about the same spot where I deposited my first ruined umbrella in the bushes two days before, with a dramatic flourish that you have to be a baseball fan to appreciate.  In the 80s there was a flamboyant home run hitter named Dave Parker; for the purposes of this story you may substitute any other flamboyant slugger that you wish.  Dave Parker was a big man – 6’6” and muscular – with an even bigger ego.  When he connected on a pitch that he knew was going to leave the park, he would hold his bat straight up in the air, high over his head, while he watched the flight of the ball, and then flip  the bat end over end.  It would somersault several times before landing on the ground, at about the same time that he would begin his home run trot, which he called “The Thing.”

That’s what I did with Umbrella Number One.  I did look back once before it was lost at a turn on the trail.  It was flapping quietly in the wind, jaunty red against the green bushes.  I was disappointed to see that someone had removed it in the intervening two days.  I had hoped it would stay there forever, like Stonehenge, and that tourists would come to see it and wonder at a civilization that could spawn such a thing.

At the car this time I confidently put on my dry clothes, breaking an arm patting myself on the back for my wisdom and foresight.  I took my mud spattered and soaked pants, folded them carefully, and laid them on the parking lot gravel next to my car.  When I backed out I made certain to drive over them.  I wanted them to know that I was more powerful than they were.

I got to my coffee shop and ordered my Grande Americano.  It was nice being in clothes that were dry and warm.  When I reached for my wallet, I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that it wasn’t there.  It was, of course, still in the pants that I had abandoned in the parking lot, and then run over.

I’m kidding about that last part.  I had the wallet.  I’m really, really stupid, but not THAT stupid.