Tuesday, October 05, 2004

do unto others.....

I'm still relatively young. Not as young as I used to be, but then again neither is anyone else. I can still do most things I've always done, I just end up paying for them later on. For example, I could once eat with reckless abandon and maintain my waistline. Now when I walk down the ice cream aisle at Bi-Lo, I pick up an extra 3 pounds.

Another way to prove to yourself that you're aging happened to me last night. I got home, went running, and came back inside to cool down. While getting some water, I got one of those "by the way" comments from Susie. Long story short, I was volunteered to help put together a couple of storage cabinets with my father-in-law for an elderly friend of the family. Gotta' be honest with you, I didn't have that on my Top 10 list of things to do last night. But I went anyway, amid a series of "I'm sorry"'s from my bride. Truth is, I don't mind doing that kind of thing that much. It's just that, as I would later confirm to myself, this project was more of a Saturday task than a Monday after-work task. So we put the cabinets together, and started heading home around 9:30. At that moment, I realized it was almost my bedtime (way #1 that I could tell I was getting older). I got home and showered, and was in bed by around 10:15. I was a little sore from the evening's activities (way #2 I could tell that I was getting older). However, when I woke up this morning, I felt like I had been in a bar-room brawl (way #3 - sustained pain from the previous night's endeavors). (I'd like to point out that I've never been in a bar-room brawl, but I've seen the movie Roadhouse several times and I would imagine that the pain would be quite intense.)

Looking back, last night wasn't all that bad. The simplest (and best, I suppose) way to view it is that I was able to do something for someone who couldn't do this for themself. I'm sure that when I graduate from OFIT to OF one of these days, I'll be grateful to have someone do these types of chores for me.

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