A form of exercise

My body members staged a mutiny the other day. I informed them that we were going to go work in the garden, and immediate protests arose from every direction.

"You pulled a muscle in me the last time we were out there!" said one of my legs.

"Don't exaggerate," I told it. "You just got stretched a bit. It's good for you to get stretched a bit."

"We always get dirty in the garden," said my prissy feet. If they had noses, they would have wrinkled them in distaste.

My face complained that it did not get enough sun when I worked in the garden. "Summer's half over, and look how pale I am!" it whined.

"It's a little difficult to have your hands doing one thing while your face is turned up toward the sun," I said. "But I'll see what I can do," I added dryly.

My arms and back started arguing about which of them did the most work in the garden. "We have to carry that heavy watering can all the way from inside the house," my arms said. "And hold it up the whole time she's watering."

"Please," my back said. "Who do you think holds you up? Huh? And spends all that time bent over so you can be closer to the plants when you water them? Me, that's who! And all I get for it are aches and pains."

"Enough!" I said. "Obviously, you all are not getting enough exercise. So tomorrow we start a vigorous regimen of walking."

You can imagine the protests this brought on. Only my arms were happy, as walking meant that they did not have to carry anything. I thought it prudent not to tell them, just yet, that eventually I would strap some weights to them to firm them up.

But walking for exercise has not exactly been easy. The neighborhood has conspired against me. One of my former paths is blocked indefinitely by a trailer supposedly housing workers on the road that has collapsed, though so far I have seen nothing more industrious than a couple of men looking at the road and shaking their heads. In the opposite direction there is a whole army of workers at the mill-turned-luxury apartments, with trucks producing incessant beeping and clouds of noxious fumes, and workers sometimes leering.

One day, though, I rediscovered a delightful short road. No sooner had I started down it than something large popped out in front of me. In the shadows of the trees, it looked like an enormous rat. When it stepped into the light I could see it was actually a very scrawny fox, who is a fixture in the neighborhood. I almost turned back. A fox did not seem an appropriate walking companion. But then I thought, I have been turned back from my healthful purpose by people and vehicles; I will NOT be turned back by a fox! I had as much right as he did to be there -- more, in fact, since I, a human, was on the road and he, a wild creature, should be in the woods.

I resolutely kept walking. The fox stared at me a while, then turned and continued down the road in front of me. After a while it stopped and looked at me again to see if I was still following. It kept walking again. This happened several times. I thought we must look like something out of a child's storybook, a fox walking along the road with a human trailing behind it. Finally it turned and went into the woods, like a sensible wild animal. Score one for human trying to get some exercise!

But on my way back up this narrow road, I heard a loud clattering that I took to be the garbage truck. I looked around frantically. There was not enough room for both of us on the road, so I would have to detour quickly to a branch of the road just ahead. But then the noisemaker came into view, and I could see that it was not the garbage truck. A car -- a very expensive car -- was coming down the lane, the driver with one hand out the window holding resolutely onto his garbage can, dragging it home with him. As he got closer, he could see me trying not to laugh. "Beats walking to get it," he said somewhat defensively.

Looks like I am not the only one who needs some exercise around here.

I told Joe about the fox and how reluctant it seemed to go into the woods. "It's probably easier for it to walk on the paved road than in the woods," he said.

Yes, I guess even a fox faces mutiny of his body members at times: "Ooo! Ow! These brambles are killing us! Why can't we walk on something decent?? You always have to go the hard way...."