It was bound to come up. When it did, I didn’t bother to write about it here, but now it’s come up twice.

The first time was about three weeks ago.

“So…”

Everything always begins with “so…”

She’d mentioned how much weight it looked like I’d lost. I really don’t like talking about it. It’s a personal failing of mine and I’m doing something about it. But out.

“So what made you decide to…”

I didn’t have to think long for an answer. I mean, in truth, I was about to attend a memorial service and not that I wanted to look good or anything — the point is that I was going to be wearing a suit and it was either going to be the one I already own or one that I would have to buy.

“I need to fit into my suit,” I told her.

Which is a lot better answer than this one: “Well someday [please, God] when Angel sees me naked, I want it to look better than this.” No, the truth just wouldn’t do.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought maybe you had a new girlfriend or something.”

“Right,” I replied. “I suppose that would be my grandmother.”

And that was that, for a while.

Now the rest of the story gets into the murky depths of my superstitious soul. You see, my son has this baseball tournament next week and if they win they’ll play a couple weeks later. So I signed up for this road race. I figured the more conflicts I have with future tournaments, the more likely the baseball gods will get confused and, well, so it goes.

This brings us to the other day. I said something about the race and she asked me, “who are you doing the race with?”

Which is kind of a funny question, except that what it means is she thinks I’m having some kind of fitness affair with someone I’m planning to run this race with.

So the scent is off the quarry, I suppose. It’s just a little funny, I guess.

The truth is that it’s one of these corporate races and our company will have a team and I’ll get a lame t-shirt to add to my lame t-shirt collection.

And of course I hope [please, baseball gods] that I won’t be there to collect it.