Pain On The Treadmill

I have always loved big family gatherings around the holidays. Everyone comes together and asks the same obvious questions year after year, yet somehow it never gets old. There’s food, fun, laughter, and ridiculous looking sweaters all around. As a kid my favorite part of Thanksgiving was always Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I would always wish I was a rope-holder for one of the big balloons. Ok that’s a lie I secretly wished I was in one of the big balloons because I thought it would probably work very similarly to a moonbounce. I still would like to do that actually. If you are in a position to arrange for me to experience this, contact me immediately.

Anyway, after the parade was over, lunch wasn’t quite finished and there was never a whole lot to do. This would generally lead to me wandering around the house breaking things and then hiding them so my aunt wouldn’t find them until May. On one particular Thanksgiving though, I went into one of her guest rooms and found her new treadmill. A treadmill is a novel concept to a child and so I was quite curious about it.

Believe it or not I did think to find an adult to supervise me, just as the little bar on the front said, so my aunt Vanessa came in to show me how it worked. She cut the treadmill on a very slow speed and helped me get on and start walking. She explained to me all about how a treadmill helps to steadily increase your heart rate which burns calories and reduces fat. I didn’t give a damn though, I just wanted to see how fast it would go. Or better yet, how fast I would go.

I kept up for a few seconds, my slow walk turning into a desperate lunge for the front of the machine. As the motor kicked into high gear and the belt started turning, I knew I had no chance. My feet slid out from under me and I landed on my knees behind the treadmill. I actually caught myself with my hands; however, my hands landed on the belt of the treadmill, which was still running. The belt conveniently slid my hands right off the back and I tipped forward. Since I had all of my weight forward I landed right on my nose, which was then being sanded down by the evil machine.

My aunt jumped and cut the treadmill off as quickly as she could, but by then at least four seconds of face/treadmill interaction had passed. My aunt helped me into the kitchen where everyone turned and looked in horror. My nose was bleeding quite badly from the front, and I was crying like I had just seen someone murder Santa. Every time I sniffed it made my nose hurt more, which made me cry more. Eventually my mom calmed me down and cleaned me up, but the glorious scab lasted for weeks. There was no end to the booger jokes, and even today my nose looks a little shorter than it should be.

Josh