A little help please:

I’m looking for a bit of aid with a new problem and revelation. The last couple of mornings have been very nice, great walking weather. But, and here’s the thing, it has also been really good sleeping weather. The last two mornings I have slept late and that has been at the expense of my morning walk in the park.

Wait, don’t panic! It’s not what you think. Late this last spring, when it was nice, I started walking to the office from home. In the morning it wasn’t bad and at the end of the day if I wanted to get home, I had to walk. All the way around it was a good deal.

My morning walk in the park takes me about an hour, if I hustle, which I try to do. The walk to work takes a little over 40 minutes. As you can see, more time picking them up and putting them down, if I walk to work. So, that allows me to sleep a bit later.

I don’t want to hear from any math majors asking me to explain the time differential here. It just does, trust me on this. Anyway, I feel righteous and I’m getting my exercise in, more in fact. That’s not the problem.

The problem is with the traps on the route. I have been walking to work through the park and a very upscale neighborhood, but coming home I go a longer way up Peachtree at rush hour. Not as bad as it sounds. No the problem is all the restaurants, cafes, coffee shops and pubs that line the street. They call to me.

David Mammet, the great contemporary playwright, has written a book called “Writing in Restaurants.” I could write a companion book call “Reading in Restaurants.” After all the years of eating alone I have developed a pattern of taking a good book while having, food, ale, coffee or whatever is appropriate, as I read. I enjoy it. I’ve done that all over the world, it defines my evening meal approach. After all these years I find it hard to go into an eating or drinking establishment with out a book.

Tonight as I was walking home I could hear deep fat calling to me. Hops cried out my name. Calorie’s odors wafted over the sidewalk and caressed my nose with promises of dreams gone by. I walked past stake houses, German beer gardens, bistros, greasy spoons, Chinese and then later Chinese takeout. All of them singing siren’s mournful tune of seduction. Then there were the coffee shops, Starbuck’s has a Chocolate Chip Cookie that is a particularly dangerous seductress. But I walked on. I didn’t have a book, so I couldn’t stop for food or drink. I don’t understand how people can just sit there and chew.

I swear to you I passed a certain steak house, which shall be nameless, and there was a scantily clap young woman waving a large Porterhouse at me. She had a baked potato in one hand and was balancing a pint of dark ale on her head. But, I walked on.

It was hard, I tell you it was hard. But, I walked on.


Now we come to my need for your help. I take my laptop home in my backpack. I have my new cell phone, which by the way has more features that I’ll ever use. I don’t really understand most of them, but that’s another story. But, what I didn’t have was something to read. For today I was saved.

Tomorrow I might slip in a book thus pushing temptation to the breaking point. Therefore, any time you see me with my backpack you can assume that I walked to work. You will need to throw me to the floor and search for a book and if you find one confiscate it until you see me back with my car.

I am calling out to my Brothers and Sisters for aid, here. This is your Christian duty. This also applies to Pagans.