What the Hell Are You Doing?

I’m sick of stuff burning and ruining my workouts. I was watching Good Morning Jacksonville this morning, and they had a piece about Georgia being on fire, and whether or not William Tecumseh Sherman has risen from the grave to let them know who their daddy still is. The cameraman was filming the fire and a fireman holding a hose. The fireman wasn’t spraying water on the fire. He wasn’t spraying any type of flame retardant on the fire. He was just standing there holding a hose. I don’t know what kind of training fireman go thru – other than being shown how to get to the closest Publix – but I hope a portion of it consists of the concept of pointing the hose at the fire and pulling the lever on the hose. Maybe he wasn’t a real fireman. Maybe he was a porn star waiting for the director to yell “Action!” Studies have shown that 1 out of every 1.01 adult films begin with a fireman saying some variation of, “I heard there was a three alarm fire so I brought the big hose.” This is all beside the point, which is that the fireman wasn’t putting out the fire and it ruined my workout.

I picked up the pace of my back routine today because I had an early meeting and I wanted to get in an hour of cardio. I finished in forty minutes, shaving off twenty. I hopped on the elliptical because we’ve been through the running outside in smoke experience. After about twenty minutes my vision went all wonky. The only way I can describe it is like someone spraying water on a window in random spots of my field of view. This has happened occasionally since I was eleven. It usually happens during intense exercise. I’ve always thought it had to do with dehydration, but now I’m thinking it has to do with my sinuses being irritated by smoke. When it does happen I know I have about twenty minutes until I get a debilitating headache. The only headaches that compare are the ones I’ve woken up with the morning after tequila became a good idea. Which is why I’ve always thought they were dehydration headaches. Anyway, I jumped off the elliptical, raced home, took three Tylenol and a Claritin-D, and drank half a gallon of water. I was able to stave off about 80% of the headache, but even ten hours later it’s still lurking in the background.

Yeah, I get it blah, blah, blah containing the fire. Blah, blah, blah controlled burn. Blah, blah, blah, natual life cyle of a forest. But is it really so much to ask for a fireman to put out a fire? It's almost bikini season.