Sam was a quite successful man. At least he thought so. He had a quite well-paid job, a mistress sometimes and an apartment in the city center. But day after day he started to think more and more, that maybe his life isn’t so good after all and he might be getting old. So, one Sunday he went to the mirror and had a good look at himself. The view sure didn’t satisfy him. His stomach was really big, he couldn’t even see his toes when he tried to.

For his great relief he found a book that taught how to get in good shape. He had a good look at it and suddenly his eyes stopped on a chapter called “jogging”. It said, that a short jog twice a day could show results already in one week. He decided to try it, as he thought it easy and cheap.

He pulled on his old trainers, which he last used in high school and jumped down the stairs, feeling like a young deer. Unluckily the landing wasn’t so good and he hurt his back a bit, but this couldn’t scare him yet. He started running down the street and on his first steps he realized, that his stomach, with all fat on it, was jumping up and down with every step he took. This had also been noticed by some boys standing on the sidewalk, so they had a cheerful laugh over him.

He acted like he hadn’t noticed them and ran around the corner. Two women were discussing about the prices of home-baked cookies there. One of them had a stupid-looking dog with her, licking the backs of his ears. Sam took a deep breath in and tried to run around them. Unluckily the dog just moved a bit and of course Sam got stuck in the rope, which connected the woman’s hand with dog’s collar. He fell and hurt his knee badly. The dog’s eyes lit up and he took a mighty leap and closed his teeth around Sam’s hand. Then the ladies turned around and saw Sam trying to choke the dog. They took their purses and started beating him wherever they could reach.

Finally he got away, body full of red and purple spots. Like the irony of fate, it also started raining , when he walked towards home, with broken spirit and body. When he got home, he immediately threw the book away and promised never to try jogging again. Next time, he thought, he would go parachuting, that would be a lot safer and nicer than jogging…J