B: Bad Ass (Blogging From A to Z Challenge)

I was on the treadmill at the gym yesterday afternoon trying to keep my brains from leaking out of my ears from boredom by doing something other than watch my feet go back and forth 30,000 times when I saw a woman fall off her bicycle.

My gym is located in a strip mall alongside a Chinese restaurant, a dry cleaner, a Verizon store and a gas station. I think there might be a cigar store there too but I won’t swear to that. Thankfully the owner of the gym lines the treadmills up in front of the window so folks have something to watch as they die from boredom. Because yesterday was such a decent weather day here in Minneapolis there was plenty to look at. We had a record high temperature of 83 but that unseasonable warmth came with really strong wind gusts of between 50 – 55 mph.

So I’m hiking along on the treadmill and I’m watching the people walking through the parking lot and into and out of the stores and here comes this woman out of the east riding her bicycle toward the gas station. She was a small woman, I’d be surprised if she weighed more than 100 pounds, and she’s pedaling against the wind. Suddenly a huge gust comes up and I see her lean to the side and then flop completely over and drop to the pavement. When you see someone fall or get hurt you get that little feeling of panic inside, but before I could even register the shock of what I’d just seen she stood up and got back on her bicycle and pedaled away. No checking for wounds, no taking stock of her situation, no dusting herself off; she just got back on her bicycle and pedaled.

I admired the woman’s grit and I realized then that we here in Minnesota are a bunch of bad asses. We don’t let something as simple as falling off a bicycle or the weather stop us from doing what we want to do. When its twenty degrees below zero we’re out on lakes fishing through little holes in the lake. And I don’t mean fishing inside heated icehouses, I mean sitting on an upside down five gallon pickle barrel on the ice. When it’s snowing out we’re cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. When winter finally starts thawing and the temperature rises about freezing we’re breaking out the short-sleeved shirts and going for runs and walks outside. When it’s 83 degrees on April 1^st and a 50 mph wind gust knocks us off our bicycles, we stand up, pick up the bicycle, hop back on and continue riding.

Bad ass.

Before you paint a picture of me that’s not completely accurate I should point out that we’re not all total bad asses here. When I use the word “we”, I’m using the royal “we” because I’m not a part of that hearty and adventuresome group. Once the snow starts to fly in November I try not to leave the house unless absolutely necessary until it starts to melt in late March. And on 83 degree spring days you won’t find me outside, you’ll find me walking inside in temperature-controlled comfort. But I do that walking in temperature-controlled comfort with a cool attitude, and I’m bad ass in my devotion to avoiding the sun and the elements as much as possible. So there!

Minnesota. We are tough folks up here. We are bad asses.

Check out the 2015 Blogging From A to Z Challenge right HERE.

Here’s a song for other bad asses.