Day 101

On Thursdays, I don’t work out with Art.  Instead, I frequently go to Ninfa’s on Navigation for Boys Lunch with my old friends Bill, Bert, Mike, Edd, Jack and Jay, along with a rotating cast of guests.  

All alumni of the Harris County criminal justice system, we tell fun stories from old days and have provocative discussions about politics, both national and local. I am the resident liberal because I tend to be skeptical about the day’s Fox News talking points. We argue good-naturedly over chips and margaritas like people used to before everyone got so angry about everything.

I’ve been lunching with these guys for years.  Originally, we met at The Last Concert Cafe (great Tex-Mex and the best chicken sandwich in Houston) until the combination of the hurricane and the pandemic shuttered that place like it did so many other restaurants.

Today, it was me, Mike, Bert, Jay, Jack and our guest Frank, a lawyer who knows more about local Republican politics than anyone I know. We talked about the usual things and then something funny/sad happened. 

Late in the lunch, I told the guys that I was going to walk a few miles in the afternoon, and that I was planning to run the New York Marathon. The guys responded with pleasant support and a faint tinge of skepticism.  

Mike said, “You’re running a marathon?  You know, you don’t have to do that.”

“That’s not very nice,” Frank said.

“What?” Mike asked.

What followed was the kind of exchange men tend to have as they get older. Frank asked Mike to repeat what he had said, and then said, “Oh. I guess I misheard you.”

“What did you think I said?”

“When you said ‘You don’t have to do that,’ I thought you said that Scott was too hefty to do that,” Frank explained.

Ooof.  “Hefty” is one of those words that never reflects well on the person it describes. You might call the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man that, or the Michelin Man, but not ME.

Hefty?  Who, me?

But Frank could only have misheard that word because he actually thought Mike had said it. You don’t mishear “You’ve got a big hat” as “You’re big and fat” unless the “you” in the statement is actually capable of being described as big and fat.

Heartbreaking, but also motivating.  So after lunch, I came home and got my walking gear. My two dogs watched me closely, and my heart broke. They wanted to go walk so badly.

So they went with me!

I am working on breaking my walker’s block, one day at a time. Maybe the combination of sharing the road with happy dogs and being called hefty will get me going again.

(NOTE: Time was not great because dogs stop a lot.  A lot.  And the distance was not great because these dogs are kind of out of shape.)