Daily Archive: Sat. September 13, 2008

The great downtown chase

Last night I hung out with Hui downtown. After eating we went to the theatre to catch Tropic Thunder. Heh, that was a fun movie. It’s easy to see how the movie can be offensive to a lot of people, but the satire all makes sense in the context of the movie. Robert Downey Jr. was the standout for me. Tom Cruise also surprised me. Overall, I enjoyed it.

It was late when the movie ended. As we were exiting the Scotiabank Theatre I asked Hui what time his train was leaving. He checked his watch and said 11:42. I checked my watch and thought, “oh shit.” We had about 13 minutes to cover a 20 minute leisurely walking distance. If he missed the train, he’d be stuck there for an hour for the next one to come. I told him “all right, we’ll get you there” and started walking fast. About 5 minutes in I decided that it was unlikely that we’d make it and suggested that we do a light jog. He agreed so we started picking up the pace. I still had my work bag with me and that was shaking all over the place, so I grabbed it and tucked it under my arm. My shoes weren’t meant for running, but I felt like I was going at a good pace. As we ran we had to weave in and out of crowds of clubbers. Every time we hit a stop light we changed direction; as long as we were moving, we were making progress.

When we got close to Union Station, he suggested that we were close enough so we slowed to a normal walk. I checked my watch again and said that we had to keep going. We were almost at the station, but I figured that 2 to 3 minutes wouldn’t be enough for him to make it to the platform. When we got inside, I slowed down and just told him to run for it. I mean, I wasn’t under the gun–so I didn’t want to stress out too much about making it. So, he went off. I checked my watch and it was the scheduled departure time for his train. I figured he had a 50/50 shot of getting on, but even at those odds I couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty for leaving him.

As I headed into the subway area, I started sweating profusely. I hadn’t allowed myself sufficient time to cool down from the downtown chase so as soon as I stopped that’s when it all caught up to me. My face was absolutely drenched. I took a few papers from outside my bag and started fanning myself. A few people around me moved away. I kind of laughed at it–I don’t blame them at all. I mean, here’s this guy that’s sweating profusely–maybe he’s got some sort of weird contagious virus? When I got on the train, the subway car was heavily air conditioned so I just sat there letting my temperature head back down to normal levels.

About an hour ago I called Hui and found out that he missed his train. You mean to say that I could have prevented sweating like a hooker in church? Chee.

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