My wife an I have an acquaintance who has an online presence that is, well, a little precious. His posts are always quite serious and introspective. Don’t get me wrong, he is a very good writer, but at the same time it’s a little eye rolling. I was reflecting on that and thinking about my own blog and realized people probably think the same thing about my posts. Not that they’re introspective or anything, but that I make an effort to be humorous. I’m sure that all three of you who read are all like, man, this guy thinks he is soooo funny. In light of that I will now only post serious articles meant to educate and challenge my readers. In other words, my blog is growing up and becoming an adult, so no more silliness.

Last Sunday three miles into a six mile run I took a huge dump under a bridge. I hadn’t planned on taking a dump under a bridge when I started my run that afternoon, but that’s how it turned out. I’m generally pretty good about getting the train out on time first thing in the morning, but that morning the conductor wasn’t feeling it and so it didn’t happen until the first three miles of that run cleared the tracks.

I’ve mentioned before but I live next to what we around here call corp land. When the Army Corp of Engineers built the reservoir in the early 70s there was a lot of surrounding land that they claimed. Roads run through that land and you can still run or hike down those old roads in a lot of places. Last Sunday I decided to run down Division Road which loops through a section of this corp land. This section of road has a number of bridges that cross over various streams and smaller rivers.

From my house to one of the bridges on Division Road it is three miles exactly. I ran to that point and decided to pause for just a moment and take in the nature surrounding me. There was no one else around and so I just stood and watched the water and listened to the birds. That was a mistake. As soon as I stopped I knew I had a runaway train to deal with. I tried to ignore it and actually took a couple of steps as if to start running, but it was a no go. The crossing gates were down and I was sure to collide with a locomotive if I proceeded.

I contemplated briefly about where to go, and I mean briefly, because things were happening pretty fast, if you know what I mean. I quickly ducked under the bridge, dropped my shorts, leaned back by supporting my weight on an overhead girder and did the deed, right out there in the open air, like a freakin’ coyote or raccoon.

Well, that was done, but now I had to decide how to, um, clean myself. I swear to you I could not find any good size leaves. There were no sycamores or maples or anything like that around. All I saw were these little scrub bushes that had leaves about the size of my thumb nail. It was time to think outside the box. That’s when I saw a couple of sticks nearby. I picked up the thinner of the two, because, well, reasons, and proceeded to make an attempt and cleaning up. The stick broke off in my butt. I literally had a stick up my butt.

I pulled that out of there and made a second attempt with the larger stick. It didn’t break but I wasn’t sure how effective it was. That’s when my eyes fell to an old sock that was lying down by the water. Who knows whose sock that had been? Who knows how long it had been drifting around in that water until that fateful day it ended up on the bank? I sure don’t know. All I knew was it had once been white but was now a filthy dirty grey color, and it was turned inside out. I picked it up and it was wet and had mud caked to one side. I shook it off and made an honest effort to make myself whole.

That was done and so I could continue my run. Three more miles. I washed my hands off in the river and looked around just to see if anyone else had witnessed the spectacle. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if a camouflaged duck hunter had been sitting across the way. What a story he would tell.

I ran home feeling a lot lighter, probably because I wasn’t carrying as much dignity as I had started out with. But what else could I have done? I mean, what were my options?

Well, one option would’ve been not to blog about it so that three more people could read about it and thus lose even more of what little dignity I maintain, but what good would that do? This blog is meant to educate and enlighten my readers. What if another jogger needs to let a train leave the station half way into a run?

So, what have we learned? 1) The train may be delayed but it’s going to show up at some point 2)  You gotta do what you gotta do 3) Scout out where the big leaves are 4) Maybe use a stick? 5) An old wet dirty tube sock may not be a bad option.

There you have it, a humor free post about a very adult subject. I don’t know if there are any blogger awards for this type of serious subject matter but I anxiously await mine.