Report from the Trail: German stroller bowling
I went for a run at the Central Park Reservoir yesterday. I did three laps, and my t-shirt was soaked through by the second. The path around the reservoir was full of tourists, and as usual, the Europeans were going the wrong way: walking clockwise in slow, ambling groups, right into the teeth of the type-A, Manhattan runners.
As I approached a group of Germans, I saw a little girl blindly pushing a stroller toward me. She was visible only as a mop of curly blond hair above the top of the thing and a pair of small pink hands along its sides. It seemed like I had plenty of Lebensraum to get by, but at the last second it was like someone radioed in a torpedo warning, because she veered due left, directly into my path. I literally had to hurdle it.
Replace the armored truck with a stroller, and you get the idea.
A stand-up stroller, turned sideways, is essentially an isosceles triangle, and I estimate that I cleared it at its midpoint. I was careful to lead with my left leg, which had to pass over the higher part of the slope, and trail my right. I made it with a few inches to spare. And so, once again, irrefutable Anglo-Saxon math triumphed over German aggression. The code-breakers at Bletchley Park would be proud.
An artist’s rendering of my leap.
/claps
Thank you! Yes, it was very action-y of me. Of course, the other side of it is that I was a few inches away from wiping out/being a wiped out by a tow-headed toddler tourist. I try not to dwell on that.
I know! But just think of it! If you had done a barrel roll, someone could of gotten that on camera and it would be on youtube in seconds. I bet you felt badass after that one though. I’m sure you wanted to go turn over a truck, or something.
Yes! I went through like three stages in .7 seconds: surprised, annoyed, badass. I was like, Did anyone see that? Anyone not from southern Bavaria?
Is that a Bob Platts diorama perchance?
It does have a distinctly Plattsian look to it, but no. You can tell by the absence of several children in the background and/or spilled grape juice…