The k

So this happened at a party, again….

ME: How’s your night tonight?

STRANGER:  Good, I’m having fun but I can’t drink too much because I’m running a 5k in the morning. 

ME: That’s awesome, a 3.1 miler.  Wise choice, not drinking too much.

STRANGER:  Yea, it’s a 5k for charity.

ME: 3.1 miles for charity, very noble.  What’s the cause?

STRANGER: I’m running a 5k to raise $2,500 for children with brain cancer. 

ME: 3.1 miles for a great cause!  You’re one of the good ones.

STRANGER: Yea, lots of people running the 5k in the morning.

ME:  You mean lots of people running 3.1 miles in the morning.

STRANGER:  Yea, a 5k.

ME:  Like I said, 3.1 miles…

And this will continue ad barfeum until I somehow get that person to admit, confess, concede, that a 5k is 3.1 miles and a 10k is nothing more than 6.21371.

OCD, ADD, ASPD, there’s a casually clinical continuum of manageable madness we all possess beneath our skulls.  We’re all diagnosable in some way, of some thing, to some one in any moment in time.  In this circumstance, OCD.  ADD is another chapter I’ll hit soon enough if I don’t interrupt myself in this very sentence which I haven’t yet so far but I could so soon very soon very very very soon but I digress.... 

The K correction, this unstoppable Larry Davidesque reflex howls out no matter where I am or who I’m with.  I could be on a first date with my future wife, in a pitch meeting with the head of some network (years from now), or Skyping with God and still I can’t block the impulse.

GOD:  Nathan, listen, I’ve given you a great family, friends, women and opportunity, you have time on your hands, you’re a healthy guy, why not raise money for childrens’ leukemia and run a 10k?

ME: You mean a…

The K bothers me.  Perhaps it’s because people use the K to make it seem like they’re doing more than they are – especially when raising money for a noble cause.  Maybe there’s a valid sociological reason for it.  Maybe not.   

I ran 2 marathons (26.2 miles) yet never bragged about how the 41^st kilometer near destroyed me.  I buy my milk in gallons, soda in liters, marijuana in ounces and cocaine in grams.  Ok, David Duchovny on Californication said the white horse rides in on grams.  Without doing a full report on the metric v. imperial system of measurement, I still think all those wonderful people raising money for charity are wise for drinking less at a party the night before a 3.1 miler.