Skipping Wrong Along

I guess it'll come as no surprise to many of you that I'm wired a bit oddly. It seems that while people my age increasingly complain about experiencing "senior moments" (those embarrassing mini-bouts of forgetfulness, incontinence, and inexplicable use of the word galoshes), I, on the other hand, am prone to "junior moments," where for some reason I momentarily revert to toddler/tot/tyke mental status (my doctor tells me not to be alarmed, recommending regular doses of Scotch, prunes, and "Bonanza" episodes to rectify the problem). Usually these lapses go virtually unnoticed by anyone but me, but today, well, today was a doozy. A woman came in the store today looking for one of those naughty crocheting books that seem to be proliferating, and just as I started to walk her toward the section (we're a sophisticated, customer-service-driven going concern; we don't point), I overheard a barista telling a customer that the cream and sugar were located on a counter just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Well, next thing I know, I was skipping, not sashaying, not power-walking, not strutting, but full-blown, kindergarten physical education class skipping through the store back to the crafts section. Well, you'd have thought the ghost of Michael Jackson had chosen our humble (but sophisticated and customer-service-driven) bookstore to put in a one-year-later nude moonwalking appearance. Shrieks, manic coverings of eyes, old men reaching for nitroglycerin tablets, mothers shielding their precious Sharon Draper-summer-reading-shopping children, the mousy woman who hangs out in the paranormal section and whom I've developed quite a crush on projectile vomiting--all of this instantaneously in reaction to the sight of a chunky, pushing-50, hairline-receding-but-in-no-way-balding man merely having a good skip. Thankfully (after gulping down a few lint-covered prunes which I keep in my pocket, just in case, and conjuring an image of Ben Cartwright and Little Joe waxing their saddles [all the while ruing the fact that I had ingested my one-day limit of airline bottle Scotch earlier in the morning when I had felt the urge to demonstrate my somersaulting technique for a crotchety guy looking for Karl Rove's book]), the cops who had been summoned were in a good mood, and figured if I publicly apologized via the store's intercom and offered to spread the sawdust-like gook over the vomit, no charges would be filed.

Which all has begged the question for me ever since: what's so wrong about skipping? Now some people will claim that no man alive over the age of eight should ever skip, except for Danny Kaye, whose whole essence, let's face it, is summed up in the act of skipping, but Danny Kaye's been dead for years, so adult male skipping is right out, end of story. But my gosh, have you skipped lately? Bikini waxing, skydiving, and chucking it all to pitch your tent at a nudist colony* be damned--there is no more liberating body-centric experience than skipping. Now I realize it might look a little goofy (well, I admit, outside of posing for a muscle magazine there is no goofier-looking body-centric activity than skipping; before my skipping episode today [and no, I didn't ask to view the hidden security camera footage, so I didn't actually catch sight of my skip] the closest I've come lately to witnessing a grown man skip is watching the Indians' Grady Sizemore do a kind of high-leg strut during warm-ups, and while Grady, when he puts down his strategically-placed coffee mug and stays healthy long enough to play for a couple games in a row, is an amazing athlete to watch [to see him turn his back to home plate and chase down a would-be triple in deep center field is enough to induce a sports erection {yes, in addition to the more commonly-known sports hernia, there is such a thing as a sports erection; most men don't like to talk about it, but on a day I skipped in public, what the hell; really, that's what this whole LeBron James thing is about in Cleveland--a town full of sports-thrill-deprived males is quaking at the thought of the collective impotence LeBron's (imminent?) departure would effect}], even Grady Sizemore looks kind of ridiculous doing a kind of skip), but who cares, skipping is phenomenal. Tell me I'm wrong, just try.

So do yourself a favor. Forego the mundane hopping and jumping; create your own junior moment and take a good skip around the grounds today. You'll instantly feel less grumpy (it's the weekend, who needs clear thinking? see yesterday's post), even if the titans of the Walt Disney Corp. do slap you with a cease and desist order (see the comments to yesterday's post).

*When proofreading, I noticed that I had initially misspelled nudist as judist. A judist colony? Hmmm. A martial arts camp for Semitics?

Al Kooper-Am I Wrong