Time Change

The days have turned bleak and cold and dark. The clocks fell back, the darkness comes quickly and the prospects of more golf likewise grow dim.

And with Halloween over and the treats expanding my waistline, I decide: it's time to get back to the gym.

I pick the Boy up from his after-school daycare and I broach the idea. He's for it. I've got my kit bag in the car, so we'll go directly.

Boy: Daddy, can we stay for three minutes?

The negotiations begin. How 'bout ninety? I ask. There's an hour-and-a-half maximum. He counters with 30. I say 60. He asks me what's between 30 and 60.

Me: Fifty.

We have a general discussion about exercise and how you have to exercise for over a half an hour for it to do any good.

Arriving at the mall, he immediately falls into the same routine that we left a couple of months ago. It's a race to the button (the automatic door opener), a race to the elevator button, a race for the main floor button, a race to the gym. He wins all the races. I marvel that he still is locked into this same routine after all these life changes he's had over the last two months. Going to school. New daycare. The rise of GOLF.

The gym staff "oohs" and "aws" over his Halloween hat, orange with a pumpkin face and jingling bells on the top. We go into the Toy Room and I sign him in, kiss him and say:

Me: See you in 60 minutes.

Boy: No!

(ah the negotiations start again...)

Boy (cont): An hour.