My treadmill has a doohickey that can check my pulse while I walk and, after 5 minutes, I put my finger on the little red dot to see if it worked. I was relieved to see that I still had a pulse. I was doing great but, somewhere between minute fifteen and minute sixteen, I realized that the back of my heels were getting sore. Ow! I wasn’t about to stop because, after all, I had on state-of-the-art shoes. It couldn’t be a blister! I kept on walking.

In addition to the pulse detection doohickey, my treadmill has a cup holder, a fact that greatly amuses me. When I take a drink sitting in a chair, I have a fifty percent chance of wearing the drink. What are the odds that I’d even get a mouthful if I tried to drink while walking on the treadmill? I suppose I’d end up soaking wet and draped over the beanbags again so I haven’t even tried.

After thirty minutes of walking, I shut off the treadmill and hobbled to my bedroom. I sat down on my bed and took off my shoes. Sure enough, the backs of my heels were raw. Drats. This meant that I wouldn’t be able to exercise the next day. I should have been more careful. Perhaps I should have purchased state-of-the-art socks, too!

When the blisters had healed, I faithfully repeated the whole episode. Walk, sleep, eject, wake-up, walk, ow, walk, ow, ow, ow. As I took off the shoes this time around, I briefly wondered if my doctor would consider bi-weekly walking a low impact program.

By the time I have those new shoes broken in, my resolution to exercise will be at the bottom of my to-do list. I opened my closet door and tossed the shoes in. They landed in the back corner, right on top of the other fourteen pair of uncomfortable shoes that were piled there. As I left the room, I did an odd thing, definitely a few steps beyond normal. I padlocked my lingerie drawer. If my granny panties start running away, like the previously rediscovered thong, they’d bury more than the treadmill!