The Morning People

Lately I've been walking at a local park in the mornings. I love it. It is a really long, two mile, trail wrapped around a lake. It gets me away from all the shit in my head for a little bit. I hit the trail early sometimes, when the birds are just waking up and they start singing as the sun creeps up over the trees. I love the smell of the woods in the morning. That wet pine aroma that hovers on the trail. And what I love most about these walks on the nature trail is that it gets me away from people. I don't if any of you can relate, but the older I get the less I want to be around people. I find the majority of them tedious and incomprehensibly impolite. So my morning walks are my time to commune with nature and just be. I just want to be at peace and walk around a damn lake. Not too much to ask. 

Accept, apparently it is too much to ask for one woman on the trail. She is a "morning" person. I don't mean that she likes to get up early, I mean she likes to walk past you and say loudly "Morning!". Well, if you haven't guessed already, I'm not a "Morning!" type of guy. But usually, out of tolerance for the "Morning!" people, I will utter a morning under my breath. As if the morning meant "piss off". A couple of weeks ago, this morning woman slid by on my left side and said loudly "Morning!". And that day, because I really wanted to be left alone, I kept silent. As she strode on in front of me, again she said, only this time louder, "Morning!!". I looked at the back of her head and frowned, thinking "lady....just leave me the hell alone." All of a sudden, she stops in the middle of the trail and turns around to face me with her hands on her hip. "MORNING!!!", she said with her head cocked to one side. 

Well now it was a battle of willpower. There was a lot more at stake here than a good morning to a complete stranger, this was an attack on my constitutional right as a god fearing american to NOT have to say good morning to every person that walks by me on a trail. I firmly planted my feet in the ground and raised my nose up in the air as if to say "It'll be a cold day in hell before you get a good morning out of me." For a good three seconds we stood staring at each other in silence. Then she shook her head, as if I was the biggest jerk on the planet. Maybe I am. So I went back to walking and enjoying nature and finished off the two miles in silence. 

The moral of the story? There isn't one. Just, maybe, that I hate people and I'm going to start carrying an air horn when I go for my morning walks. When the morning people strike, I'm going to give them a "good morning" they will never forget!