Broken Sprinkler

wat?

Back in the day when I was feeling down I would go for a run. I ran like gd a gazelle. Everyday. These days I cannot run. Well, I should not run. If my life depended on it I could run, but when both of your feet are numb it's not ideal to run. Particularly if you enjoy having a face that isn't ground meat. So these days when I am feeling down I walk. It's nowhere near as satisfying, but it gets you out of your head and into the world and Nature has a way of uplifting the spirit. I challenge you to watch fat little sparrows hop around and not smile at least a little.

The other morning I decided to go for a walk. We needed a few things from the store anyway, so it was double incentive. The nearest store is Target, almost a mile away, so off I went. Of course these days Jude is always in tow, so I loaded all twenty pounds of him into all twenty pounds of stroller and hit the pavement pushing a forty pound weight. It was a stifling ninety-five degrees under the relentless California sun, without a cloud in sight (as per usual). By the time we hit the parking lot I was over-hot and exhausted.

The trek over the stretch of blacktop into the store is the most grueling part of the journey, as the temperature on the blacktop easily reaches into the hundreds. Hot enough to actually burn your feet through your shoes if the soles aren't thick enough. So when I saw the broken sprinkler spewing water all over the parking lot at one PM I was excited. I didn't plan on hopping in right then, as I still had to walk through the store and not only would I look strange dripping through the aisles, but it would be cold in the air conditioning all wet. Afterwards though, I could cool off in it and make my journey home much more tolerable.

Shopping was quick and hassle free, they even opened a lane just for me when they saw me at the end of a remarkably long line filled with people buying practically everything in the store while I had maybe thirteen items -- just enough that I couldn't go into the ten items or less express lane. Big sentence! On the way out I bought the traditional Icee and bag of popcorn for the walk.

Outside was something bizarre. There was a car parked next to the broken sprinkler, which was way out in No Man's Land of the parking lot. Maybe they were using it as an extremely cheap and inefficient car wash? Nope. As I got closer I could clearly make out that not only was the car parked along side the broken sprinkler, but that the passenger side door was open. So the sprinkler was spraying water all over the interior of the car. Uhm. As I walked passed I discovered not only that but that there was someone in the passenger seat. What the hell?

My brain is going to boggling about this one for a while.