In Honor of Bob's Birthday

I haven't gone this long without posting since I started this blog. To say that my life has been busy would be an extreme understatement. And with busyness comes lots of stuff to comment on but that will have to wait until the dust settles from everything I have finally completed doing.

In the meantime, in honor of Bob's 51st birthday - I thought I would share another memorable moment of hilarity - at his expense.

Among the many pieces of exercise equipment I have owned and never used was a fairly high-end treadmill. It had many settings and levels and lifts and and buttons and whistles - and it was a big, heavy-duty piece of equipment. Eventually it wound up in the garage, the graveyard for all things I feel badly for not using and too guilty to get rid of.

Bob spends a lot of time in the garage. He likes to play his guitar out there and practice his tap dancing. Generally it is a "Valri-free" zone; one in which he is not likely to hear me hollering for him to "knock it off". So the treadmill became his. And as Bob is a dancer, he is in fairly good shape which meant that he could set it on a pretty high speed and run (rather than walk) on it.

Good for him.

So one day, Bob - alone in the garage - got on his treadmill, set it on a fairly high speed and started to run. But as Bob is apt to do, he got distracted. Now it is important to note that the little belt that you attach to your clothing - the one that disconnects from the treadmill to automatically switch it off should you fall off - had long since disappeared. So Bob, unattached and distracted, began to run too close to the edge and finally shot off the edge. All within a matter of about 5 seconds, both legs flew back landing him on his knees. Reaching forward to catch his fall, his hands fell on the running belt which quickly carried both arms off the machine and back behind him - pinning his body into the "Dying Swan" position from "Swan Lake". With no hands for leverage, his forehead hit the running belt which immediately caused his head to shoot backward toward his body until his neck could not longer stretch.

And so, there was Bob, the crown of his bald head stuck on the fast-moving belt, being sanded like a piece of wood - on his knees with arms pinned back and no leverage to lift himself from this painful and humiliating situation. After a few, interminable, seconds, he finally threw his body sideways and escaped the treadmill that tried to eat him.

He was a bit battered and bruised and his head was scraped up pretty badly. But he lived to see another escapade - another story for another time.

And in spite of it all, and perhaps a little bit because of it, I love him.

And that looney photo above? Yeah, there's a story behind that too.

Happy Birthday Bob.