Wednesday, May 17, 2006

the box

I decided I'd better start this marathon training in earnest, so I've been increasing the length of my walks. I mapped out a 7.2 mile route which I'd only have to do, what, 3 times, 3 days in a row, to get the feel of 60 miles. Frankly, walking's boring. Oh, sure, I try to enjoy the scenery and acknowledge other people (although I'm not quite sure the best way to go about that. A wave is nice, but since I'm in the middle of walking, I usually just lift my hand up at the wrist and give a meek little flip below the waist; not a true wave, because that would indicate a familiarity with the person, and most of the people I see are the Mexicans come to do the landscaping, delivery guys and old people I don't know. Yeah, I could actually say "hi," and I have, but with the iPod you never know how loud that'll come out, so I tend to modify it even before it gets the chance to come out too loudly, resulting in, perhaps (I don't know because I can't HEAR it), a barely audible "hi," which seems stupid given that if the person were to say "hi" back, I wouldn't hear them anyway because of the iPod. SO, it's like 2 people just mouthing the word "hi," which would look dumb to an uninvolved third party. A simple head nod would accomplish the same thing, but I think the nod is a guy thing.)

While at the lake I noticed a cleared out circular area, about 18 inches in diameter, bordered by a garden border. In the circle were some silk flowers and a small metal box. Now my first thought was it was some kind of GPS spot, but it seemed way too ridiculous to put something like that in the wide open at this particular lake. Then I thought maybe it was some kind of tribute to something. Perhaps someone buried their cat there. Maybe it's a kid's project. I walked around to it and was tempted to open the box, but felt that it wasn't meant for me so I shouldn't open it. Beetle bugs could've come crawling out, a finger could be in there, used condoms full of yuck, I dunno. But damn if I'm not wondering now what the hell's in it. I'm pretty certain that if I were to open it, I'd be disappointed, regardless of its contents. It might be empty.There'd be no answers in there.

BTW: One week later, the box is gone.

2 comments:

Mike said...

It's a tiny crop circle, obviously made by tiny aliens.

What specific event are you training for?

carey said...

Hi Mike. Yeah, I thought that too, but then I thought they'd want to make a more extravagant extraterrestrial impression than just leaving behind some fake flowers and a box. Unless...they left a note explaining the mysteries of the universe inside the box? Hmmmm. Damn, I knew I should've checked.

This is the Breast Cancer 3-day walk. 60 miles. It oughta be...really tedious. A good cause, but tedious. That's why we're hoping to sneak some liquor (expressly forbidden!) into the campsite.