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Source: Tracy Korn
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Some things about some people may simply always baffle me.

When I was a kid my dad and I would sit in the car while my mom ran into the store with my little brother and sister. This might be a 10-minute trip or a 30-minute trip, and my dad would either turn off the car or not while we sat and watched everyone walk by.

In and out of the store. With groceries, or without. With kids in tow, or not. Just watching what they did in the three-and-a-half minutes it took them to get from the car door to the store and back again. I learned a lot of things about human nature this way.

"Tracy, let's time your mom...what time is it?"

I looked at my brand new Mickey Mouse watch with tennis racket hands that I'd gotten for my 10th birthday.

""Ummmm seven twentyyyyyyyy-eight."

"Thanks. See the red car over there? Watch it."

I watched it drive around the parking lot about 10 times if it drove around once waiting for a close parking spot. Two minutes... three minutes... five minutes.... still watching it drive around.

"Dad, can I stop watching the red car now? It's not doing anything except driving around."

"Been driving around a long time, huh?"

"Yep."

"How long's your mom been in the store?"

"Uhhhhh........dunno...." I checked my Mickey Mouse tennis rackets again. "10 minutes? Can I stop watching that car now?" as it circled past again.

"Just keep watching."

This drove me insane. I was utterly bored out of my mind watching that stupid hatchback go around and around and around. I don't really know why I was even so put out because it's not like I had anything else to do sitting in the car with my dad while waiting for everyone. But I was just gnaw my own arm off impatient with watching something so mindless.

"Oh my God lady just park, or leave, or something!" It was illogical. Baffling. My dad always made me do things like this that I never understood.

Finally my mom and sister came out several minutes later.

"Tracy, what time is it?"

The entire trip, this time, was about 20 minutes. "Seven fortyyyyyyy-seven." The red car circled again, saw us backing out of our third row spot, and slipped in.

"Hey Dad, that red car finally stopped!"

He smiled.

"You see how much more time shortcuts take?"

Looking back...that's the day I learned that there is no easy way.

The day I learned to just park and walk. To just do the work because everything else is a just kidding yourself waste of energy; a running in circles insanity that could instead be applied to getting something started and finished already.

I remember being 10 years old and going out of my mind watching people circle in parking lots. And now, this morning at 32 in the parking lot of the YMCA getting ready to go and swim, I still don't understand the circling. There, or in life.

So, I suppose it might just always baffle me...

Tracy Korn
Tracy is a language assistance program coordinator and English teacher at an alternative high school for at risk students in the Midwest. She is currently training for Ironman Wisconsin, 2007. Contact information: tracy@throughth3wall.com.