Ever feel like one of those parkour guys? Me neither, but I got pretty close one time.
I had 14 minutes until my first class started. Work’s about a 20-minute walk if I push it. At 15 minutes, I pretty much have to run. Anything faster than that, and there’s no guarantee I’ll make it because of the street lights. Plus, even at 15 minutes, I’m huffing and puffing when I walk in.
I decided, even as I walked out the door that day, that I’d take a taxi.
Thing is, there’s no easy place to get a taxi from where I live, not if I want to go to work anyway. The easiest place to get a taxi is at an intersection about a 10-minute walk away. So I ran that.
Actually, I didn’t run the whole thing. I ran for probably five minutes flat out, not a full sprint, but more than a jog. I stopped at the crossing. I had to: cars crossing.
Once the light changed and I made it to the other side, I realized that if I backtracked a bit, I could grab a cab when the driver would still have time to pull a right at the next street. So I backtracked, flagged down a cab, and jumped in.
We drove for about 30 seconds. I wanted the driver to drive through an intersection, but he told me he couldn’t. At first, I thought he meant he wouldn’t. Then I realized he couldn’t. I’d never taken a taxi all the way to work, so I’d never noticed the “no crossing” sign.
Time to bail. I handed the driver some cash and hoofed it across the intersection. Thankfully, there’s a crosswalk.
On the other side of this second crosswalk, I jumped the fence, parkour style, to get on the other side of the street. From there, I flagged down another taxi.
A few stop lights later, and I stopped the new driver. I handed him a few bills and jumped out.
I bounded like a Jackalope up the stairs to the school. I stepped inside five minutes after my class should have started.
David told me that Daniel, the new Daniel, a new teacher who was just hanging around for training, had taken my class. I grabbed my book and headed for the class.
Sure enough, Daniel was teaching, or acting like it, mostly looking nervous.
“Hey, um, I’m here,” I said. “Thank you. I got this from here.”
New Daniel looked legitimately relieved. I looked like a mess: red faced and sweaty, hair poking in crazy directions, huffing and puffing. New Daniel left the classroom. I took over.
“Hey, guys,” I said, “How is everyone today?”
Do those parkour guys end their runs that way?
