Wednesday 8 October 2008

Joggers in the Fossil Record

Wikipedia: Joggers in the Fossil Record.

You know those dinosaur footprints that you see in rock that was once the sea shore or a river bank? Well there were a certain two fossils out for a lunchtime run around the uni campus and to get back to the buildings they had to run through the car-park of the golf club, a public footpath. The car-park encroaches on the path a bit at this point and one gentleman golfer with a flash Porsche was getting into his car, with the aid of a shoe horn to prize his grossly fat backside into the unfeasible bucket that passes for a seat. Naturally he had his door wide open and it took up most of the path. As the elderly joggers got to this point they had to step aside from the path and one elderly fossilised jogger, a guy with receding frizzy grey/brown hair, had to step on the doorstep of the groundsman's shed to get by. This was an interesting and novel experience as yesterday the groundsman had no step to his shed. It turned out to be a mass of wet concrete and the grey haired jogger sank in to the top of his expensive trainers, leaving a fossil record of the day two prehistoric runners passed through. The prehistoric runners felt obliged to scarper quickly despite the taller one (he with the grey/brown hair) wanting to claim for cement damage to a pair of Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes. The shorter jogger, with almost no hair and laughing like a drain, said that it had added new miles to the shoes which, in scientific parlance, were said to be sh*gged months ago anyway.

One day those footprints will be in a human museum - proof of the existence of the fabled Laughing Jogger or Joggus Fossilus. Until then it would be best to stay out of reach of the groundsman who is probably hoping to give the Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes a decent burial in a sixth hole bunker, ideally with the tall grey/brown haired jogger still wearing them.