Why not Walk?

This past Saturday, Brian decided he was going to leave us girls and go to a meeting for his fraternity. I say …”Good Riddance and Be Gone! “ He has lived here almost 4 years and hasn’t been to one meeting yet. I was glad he was going. I told Adrianna that we would do something together, just us girls.

Now, let me back up a bit. We are a two car family. Well, I mean we have two vehicles that take us places, but only one of them can really be considered a well running machine. Brian’s car is ‘special’ to say the least. The air conditioner works in the winter and the heat seems to work EXTREMELY well in the summer. But, when it’s summertime, and you sit in the car and turn on the a/c, it’s like sitting in a sauna and having someone blow hot air on you. We are well aware that we need a new vehicle. With me student teaching, it wasn’t the right time to buy one and quite frankly, we love only having one car note.

Now, while student teaching, I decided to simplify everything. This included my purse. I got a small over the shoulder purse/wallet/thingy and decided that I didn’t need all that crap that I usually carry around with me. I had my wallet, lip gloss and cell phone. The only problem was fitting my keys in this small purse/wallet/thingy. So I decided I would finally get rid of all the keys that I didn’t need. Well, you guessed it, Brian’s car key ended up in a bag somewhere in my closet, which we will refer to as the black hole.

I never drive Brian’s car. In fact, I avoid it like the plague. I mean there is really no reason for me to drive it. It smells like a man car, the air doesn’t work and it’s brown. Plus, I think some of the steering wheel is deteriorating. I feel wheel residue on my hands whenever I have to drive it.

So back to my original story…Saturday Brian goes to his meeting and decides he wants to take the car with the a/c. This is totally fine and understandable. I tell him that Adrianna and I were going to stay close by and that we could manage in his car. Well, about 10 minutes after he left I realized that I don’t have his key on my key ring and I don’t know where the other key is. So, what’s a girl to do? Do I spend an hour in the black hole looking for the key and hoping I come out with a key (and alive)? Or do I just cancel our plans all together. It is now 6:30 and I’m stuck. I tell Adrianna the situation – that we don’t have a key to the car. And then she said it…”Why don’t we just walk?” EXCUSE ME LITTLE ONE!!! I know you’re 9 and all but you really have no idea what you are asking me to do. You want me to walk to grab some dinner? We have fried chicken in the fridge and not just any fried chicken. Popeye’s fried chicken with red beans and rice. YUM!!

I was not sure what I should do. I didn’t feel like walking anywhere but I didn’t want her to think that we had to rely on cars to get around and that exercise was bad. So, I grabbed my little purse/wallet/thingy, we put on our tennis shoes and we walked…to Chick-Fil-A. We had a pleasant meal accompanied by great conversation. It took us 40 minutes to get there and knowing that we needed to get back home before dark, we decided not to stay out too long. Now, here’s where it gets fun…on the way back Adrianna (my precious daughter who claims to love me) decided she wanted to…wait for it….wait for it….RUN!!! Yep, she wanted to run. So I had to give in, because once again…exercise is good. Say it with me everyone “EXERCISE IS GOOD”. We would run from this tree to that tree and then walk. Interval training, here I come. All I could think though was ‘How dare she sneak actual exercise in to our girls night.’

All in all it wasn’t too bad though. So much so that the next morning we all (Brian included) walked to have breakfast in the same area. It’s about a 3.5 mile roundtrip and adds an additional hour onto the trip (it would take 10 minutes total if we were driving) but the family time you get out of it is priceless. It’s also not too bad for the environment. I pointed this out to Adrianna and she said that by us taking care of the environment, it made God happy. I guess because it’s God’s planet to begin with. Can’t beat that.

‘til next time,

Emily

Little Lesson: Inconvenience is sometimes exactly what you need.