Fear

I was talking to a friend of mine about our experience Saturday night getting stuck in a frost boil.  "Was it dark?"  she asked.  I explained it was dark.  This happened after 10 p.m.  The clouds covered the moon and it was very windy.  Truth be told, at our fourth stop (the stop before we got stuck) I was feeling some fear.  Standing on the dark road and listening to the frogs sing and the wind blow, I suddenly realized that except for my sister's headlamp, it was black as pitch out there.  The road was muddy so we wouldn't even hear footsteps approaching.  I was standing facing south when I thought this and I swung around and faced north which made me feel no safer at all because whatever danger lurked could have swung around to the other side of me.  I knew I couldn't be swinging my body north, south, north, south for the entire five minutes we have to stand out there so I toughed it out.  But I have to admit, I was scared.  My friend asked me, "Weren't you worried about the people of the corn?"  I scoffed, "Corn!  We had no corn.  I was worried about the swamp monster."

Speaking of fear, on Thursday night I went to the gym to work out.  After a half hour of the elliptical I sat down on the leg press machine.  On this machine you sit in a chair and put your feet up against a platform.  I set the weight at 210 pounds and I push hard enough to propel my seat back.  I do three sets of twelve on this machine.  As usual, I had my tunes playing in my ears.  I don't look up much when I exercise.  This machine has the weights and instructions on a wall like structure on the right so I couldn't really see much to my right.  As I pushed my seat back, I saw a pair of hands out of the corner of my eye.  Then I saw the arms.  Someone was walking with arms extended straight in front of them.  Then I saw a tennis shoe kick up from a leg that did not bend at the knee.  My eyes widened and I thought, "What the hell?  Zombie!"  A woman came following the arms and leg and she did not have a pleasant expression on her face.  She didn't look pale like I would think a zombie would.  As she passed in front of me I saw another zombie coming.  A parade of people walked by my machine with their arms straight out in front of them and they were kicking their feet forward as high as their waist.  Nazi Zombies!  Twelve nazi zombies wearing spandex and quick dry fabrics walked by.   Eventually it dawned on me that they were playing "follow the leader."  Next time they went by they had another funny walk to do.  It was an exercise class.  Man, my heart was already beating fast before I saw the zombies.