Color, keys, and the kindness of strangers

When I was in high school art class, I loved getting to paint, and not just because I like to paint, I liked to paint my hands. I discovered it on accident when I got a big blob of green on my left hand. I smudged it around a little, and thought it might be neat if we came in rainbow colors. The paint began to crack after a while, and my very own hand looked like alligator skin. Oklahoma has red dirt. There's a stream that runs through Edgemere Park, and the bottom of it has what look like large red rocks, but they're huge pieces of hard, exposed clay. One can chip off little pieces and color oneself red...if one would like to, and you already know that I would, and I have.

This love of seeing my skin in other colors mixed with discovering Holi made it exciting when I found out about The Color Run. I ended up having a conflict with the date, but I was even more excited to find out the Color Me Rad event was coming to Oklahoma City, and I had the day wide open. As far as runs go, it may be my least favorite run ever, and many more people were walking than running anyway. Now that I've laid that out there (Did I mention it was held at State Fair Park and part of the course went past two HUGE dumpsters full of manure? It was and it did.), the event itself was really REALLY fun.

 Before Color Me Rad

After

After the race, I made my way back to Scoot. I was getting my stuff out of the seat (the seat pops up and there's a compartment underneath to hold things like helmets), I put the key down, pulled everything out, and the seat falls down and latches. My keys are locked inside. The key wasn't even in the seat, it was on the edge, but when the seat came down it covered it. I laughed a little nervous laugh, imagined what Jake would say, took a few pictures because what else could I do, and then I went across my row of parking spots to ask some folks if they had a bobby pin to see if I could pick the lock. No bobby pins, but I remembered I had safety pins in my bib. I took one out and started trying to pick the lock. It was a no-go, and the pin wouldn't come out. Jake was doing a run-through of Les Miserables, so I was super stuck. Just as I started looking through my phone for someone to call, the guy of the group I'd asked came and offered to put Scoot in the back of his truck and take me home. I accepted. He gathered up a few more people, they got Scoot in, and he took me home.

We unloaded it in the garage. No small task because we couldn't roll it - the front wheel was locked to the left. My fingers got smashed between the front wheel and the frame as we were carrying it. The wheel was locked, but it could move just enough. Bryce came to my rescue yet again, and forced the wheel away. One finger is still a little sore and swollen, but it's cool. I thanked them and planned to ride Josephine (my bike) to OCU to get Jake's keys so I could go home, clean up, and then go pick our girls up. They ended up offering to drive me to OCU as well. Those new friends were saintly, and they made what could have been a real bummer of a situation not so bad at all. Thank you, kind strangers from Moore. 

When I finally made it home, I snapped a few more pics, threw my clothes in the washer and hopped in the shower. The color wasn't coming off! After about 30 minutes of scrubbing, it did. It was fun to watch all the colors make their way down the drain. I can't wait for next year. I hope to get a little group together to go. It will increase the experience ten-fold. And I may get to luck out of being responsible for keys.

 

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