So this is what doom feels like. Huh, I’ve always been curious.
It’s a sensation of being lost. And helpless. And seeing your fate — your entire future — washed away in a flood. There is moody, imposing, bass-heavy theme music. You sweat a lot. People stare at you. Pity you. Know you’re going to meet your maker.
“Poor sad doomed fool,” they say. They say it out loud! SO YOU CAN HEAR!!!
I realized this — my doomedness — last weekend while in Orlando. My daughter was begging me to go into the hotel pool with her. But the water was cold. I made it up to my calves before I realized I would rather eat the backsides of dead frogs than go into that chilly water.
“I ain’t doing it kid,” I said, and ran off to build a fire in the room.
Later I realized my impending doom.
DUN-Dun-dun-DUHHH! (Imposing theme music!)
Big dummy, I thought. You won’t go into a moderately cold pool, yet in a matter of days you’ll take part in a Tough Mudder — a 10- to 12-mile race with ridiculously imposing obstacles … INCLUDING one that will require you to jump into a pool of freezing ice water and swim under a board with barbed wire.
But you don’t even like to get your precious little toes-ies cold.
DOOMED!
Yep, I can hear the music.
It’s a rag-tag Tough Mudder team we’ve put together at the college. I’ve come up with a team motto for us: “Team Flagler Mudders — Overly Ambitious … Woefully Ill-prepared.” All but our team captain realizes how foolish we were for signing up. He’s delusional.
We all bump into each other around campus and ask how the training is going. “I did a pushup last week,” is a common reply. “I think I broke my elbow.”
Then: “Are we really doing this?!?”
“Yes,” I say forlorn. “Yes, we are.”
There is resigned doom in my voice.
But resignation is a good state to be in. Life is easy when you’re resigned to your fate. You begin to appreciate, and even enjoy it.
“Hey everybody, look at me!” I tell people with a bright smile on my face. “I’m about to do something stupider than bathing in lava. And I feel GREAT about it!”
They smile awkwardly. And move their children away. “Don’t let Sammy touch him. He’s obviously not right.”
There’s nowhere to go but up when you’re doomed. You come to terms with your destiny, and instead of worrying about it, you begin to devise a plan to survive it. To overcome it.
Mine? To start doing pushups in a chilly bathtub with some really gloomy theme music.
WIFE-REQUIRED RETRACTION: Recently I wrote that my no-good chickens had quit laying eggs … forever. To spite me and continue their run of making me look foolish, they have started producing eggs again. My wife has asked that I publish this correction. (No doubt they will stop laying next week.)