Knees

Yet another incident in my bizarre relationship with my father. The man just keeps shocking me. He called me up this morning and left a message that sounded full of purpose, so I called him back when I got up a couple hours later.

He is running the Walt Disney World Marathon in January. That’s not a surprise, he’s been talking about it for quite a while and he’s very excited. Now he has decided that he wants me to run the 1/2 marathon, and he’ll pay for it. He will fly me down to Florida, pay for the hotel, and pay the registration fee. We didn’t discuss whether or not he’ll feed me, but I feel like I can work something out.

This is unusual. I knew this whole me running thing would make him happy, but I never thought it would allow me to travel. I admit I’m intrigued.

Then he went on about my training and my knees. Apparently I have my father’s knees. This is fine, he’s been running marathons for 20 years and never had knee trouble, that’s a good thing. I keep telling him that, yes, my knees do hurt sometimes. This information generally gets ignored because it’s not what he wants to hear. He keeps describing my knees as “Big Knees” Just like his. Always “Big knees.” It’s unnerving when someone points out that a part of you is unnaturally large when you never noticed before. I’m not entirely convinced that my knees are that big.

I have to think about this for a week before he’ll let me make my decision, which is actually perfect because by then I should be able to gauge what’s going on with my ankle after my unfortunate plummet down the stairs. Thank god my knees are enormous, maybe they can compensate for my ankle.