HUFFING AND PUFFING AT THE TOP OF MOUNT SI
We were the only people up there. We had just paused for rest and victuals on the benches at the top of Mount Si. These moments in nature on sunny weekends make living in Seattle and paying feloniously inflated rent worth it. As we gazed at Bellevue in the distance, gray jays and chipmunks emerged from the bushes to make their adorable protestations for food. We were living, albeit briefly, in paradise. In no time, you came huffing along. Huffing with great huffs. Sniffing with great sniffs. Were you a bear? No. You were a guy. Just a guy who proceeded to unload your pack beside us, lay out and take stock of all your items, and remove your sweaty sweatshirt, all while huffing and smacking your lips and generally hovering over us while as we tried to eat an apple in the glory of natural silence. You were acting like the old guy in the locker room who dries his balls with the hand dryer, or the guy who chooses the urinal immediately adjacent to us even when other ones are available. We’re glad you’re comfortable with your body and with excessively vocalizing your body’s labor. But damn! You had the whole rest of the mountain to yourself, including the sunny spot to which you repaired following your unnecessarily close disrobing. We know it’s a common mountain. And we’re not virgins. But come onnnn. If the good lord gives you your own flat rock by the haystack, then take it! And don’t feed the gray jays. It makes them trust people.