Guest blog from Henry Scollard, in a postcard-like presentation style

Greetings from the Cambridge Hospital Emergency Room, Wish You Were Here (Instead of Me).

I chose to sneak a quick run in, when I really should have spent that time getting ready to go out to see my friends.
I saw the couple with the big black dog in front of me, but was oblivious to the fact that they were oblivious to me.
I decided to pass on the left, the same side the dog was on.
I didn’t see any problem with this, despite the fact that this was, is and always will be a BAD IDEA.
I thought that the 2′-0″ of space between the dog and the street sign was more than ample for me to pass through.
I wasn’t fazed a bit when the dog lunged at my thigh, assuming he was sniffing my leg or maybe even giving me a love bump.
I didn’t think he had broken the skin, and so I didn’t ask his mortified owners if his shots were up to date.
I didn’t bother turning back when I noticed, two blocks later, the blood running down my leg.
I took a shower and went out drinking.
I didn’t consider medical treatment until concerned Facebook friends shook some sense into me.
I thanked the Cambridge Hospital cop for his empathy, even though I suspected that the look in his eye said something like “I’ll shoot that thing if you want.”
I wondered why the orderly asked me if I wanted to hurt myself or anybody else.
I did a lot of things that night, and despite knowing better, I did them all wrong.

It wasn’t my first post-workout trip to the Cambridge Hospital Emergency Room, and it most likely will not be my last. Previous visits have seen me:

• being restrained by a pair of orderlies while a very large insect was vacuumed out of my throat (it had flown in my open mouth during a run, and refused to budge)
• stitched across the chin after successfully converting a minor stumble on the bike path into a major fall
• given a full battery of x-rays after a (helmet-less) adventure over the handlebars after being clotheslined by a parking lot chain that I had not seen fit to see. (So bloodied was my face that my neighbor thought it was make-up and seriously asked if I had a part-time gig as a birthday clown.)

I guess you could say I’m an idiot, but at least I’m a lucky idiot, because after all that nonchalance, the worst I have to show is a couple of scars. (Both shaped liked M’s, oddly.) We get too soon old and too late smart, as my grandmother used to say. And there’s nothing but birthdays around the corner. Still, it comforts me to know that the Cambridge Hospital Emergency Room is there for me the next time I try to outrun common sense.