Final Dental Visit, Part Nine.

I was on a ten-miler going home to Falls Church from Reston down the W&OD Trail from my final of half a dozen dental visits in three months.  It was raining, but the run was invigorating as my $6,000 worth of dental procedures, just before my trusted dentist retired later this month, were done!

Eight miles in, as I was wearying, I saw up ahead a solitary runner running about my speed.  I caught up with her and lo, she wasn't wearing earbuds.

"How far you going?" I asked.  She looked at me and said, "I know you!"

A friendly runner, not wrapped up in his or her little world as is the won't of many contemporary runners these days, excluding everyone else by dint of displaying a white wire running up each side of the neck connected to earbuds nestled deep in the inner recesses of the ears, ostensibly serving up inspiring running music but also effectively shutting out the rest of the world as undesirable.  As I have learned, here's how the process of offering a friendly hello to a white-wired runner usually goes--an ignored query, then an annoyed look in your direction (you're into the "exchange" by now, unfortunately), and then a petulant ripping out of the bud from one ear coupled with a clearly exasperated ejaculation of --"What did you say?"