It was supposed to be a walk, just like every other walk.
True, a very early morning walk, as in somewhere around six in the morning early. And in the middle of the winter. In the cold. Through the remains of the latest snow storm.
Exercise is great. I’m a big fan. It’s great for the body and, in these times especially, it’s great for the mind. Blow off a bit of steam, relax, let the tensions of life drain away for a bit. Nothing’s quite like it.
But 6 a.m.
“It was around 6 a.m.,” She-who-shall-not-be-named corrected me. I’m used to being corrected, I’ve been married for 37 years, so I took the comment in stride.
But 6 a.m.?
Her husband is part of my clan, the one that says exercise before the sun rises in the middle of an Island winter is not a stress-reliever. It’s – well – it’s winter on the Island.
Part of She-who’s morning ritual involves plugging into her cellphone and listening to what calms her the most in the wee final hours of morning darkness, a podcast.
Now, podcasts are the hot ticket these days, sort of like specialty radio without the ads. No less an authority than The New York Times just devoted considerable space to the podcast explosion, saying even Hollywood is starting to figure out ways to make it pay.
And something called postcasthosting.org says, “Our research found as of February 2021 there are over 1,750,000 podcasts and over 43 million episodes.”
Pick a subject and there’s a podcast about it. Download the audio to your cellphone and it’ll go for a walk with you. Cooking, books, travel - the world is at your earlobes.
And crime.
“I like to walk while listening to podcasts about true crime,” She-who said blandly.
Yep, nothing like a bit of murder and mayhem at 6 a.m. to get the blood flowing. (Looks can be so deceiving. She-who looks so normal.)
Then it happened. In the middle of a relaxing stroll with a good bit of butchery, a car came too close.
“It wasn’t my fault,” She-who declared. “The sidewalk was all snow and ice and it was on an angle and I was afraid I’ll fall.”
She moved into the snowy side of the road to let the car pass and, somehow, the cellphone in her pocket pulled free of her ear thingies.
She jumped back onto the road and dug into her pocket, eager to reconnect her head to the homicide playing in her ears. And Houston, She-who had a problem. No phone.
Now, there was a time when cellphones were the size of a shoe and belonged to soldiers in combat – and the occasional billionaire who liked being so important that the world had to be with a moment’s reach every moment.
But now?
“I freaked,” She-who admitted. “My whole life is on there.”
Ignoring the cars zipping by – Island drivers always seem to zip everywhere, especially if a light has just turned red – she dropped to her knees and started rooting around in the snow.
The desperate minutes ticked by. Nothing. And apparently Island drivers are quite used to woman tearing up a snowbank in the morning darkness. They just kept on zipping.
Finally, she had a solution. She-who dashed home and barrelled into their apartment.
“Give me your phone,” she demanded of her husband, who must have assumed someone had reprogrammed the alarm to (a) go off early, and (b) sound a lot like his wife.
His cellphone in hand, she raced back to the offending snowbank and dialled her number. Eureka. Mere feet from the area she’d scoured was the phone.
Alas.
It must have met an Island driver zipping. Best guess, it suffered a glancing blow between the time she first gave up the search and when she returned. The spidery cracks angled off in all directions.
“I’m going out at lunch,” She-who said. “I’ll get a new one.”
Makes sense, there must be another crime in need of solving out there somewhere.
Rick MacLean is an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College in Charlottetown.
