For Good Measure

 

According to strength and conditioning coach Mike Antoniades, there is a definite speed at which jogging becomes running. That speed is 6 mph. So if I go by Joppa Rd, the county courthouse is 6 miles away from our house. 

Algebra question: Mark leaves his house at 8:13 AM, running at 6 miles per hour, westbound on Joppa Rd. What time will the ambulance get him to the hospital?

Forget it. I don't run, and the only thing I "jog" is my memory. But I guess Antoniades has a point, not that I even know who he is. You jog fast enough, you're not jogging any long; you're running. 

So let's set some other rules for when one thing becomes quite another:

• after six Buffalo wings, wings are no longer your "appetizer," they are your "entrée."
  
  
  
• you step into the walk-in cooler at O'Hoolahan's for some barley, wheat, and yeast juice and then up the register. It's cool in there. That's a "draft." But when you're stuck waiting for the MTA in a sleet storm and little icicles are forming on your nose and eyelashes, that's a "CHILL!"
• You do four laps walking around the high school track. That's a "stroll." You walk to the Bay Bridge (unless you live at that McDonald's down there) and that is "hiking" for sure.
• A surgeon lances your boo-boo at an "outpatient surgicenter." That's a ''procedure." A year later, you have a major organ transplant. That's an "operation!"
• The weather forecast calls for a foot of snow, so you run to the Try 'N' Save and stock up on Doritos, clam dip, hamburgers, hamburger rolls, frozen pizza, milk, bread, toilet paper (of course) and sidewalk de-icer. The forecast changes in the morning; we wind up with an inch of rain and 54°. You put all that extra chow in the freezer. The next week, they call for rain, and the front stalls and colder Canadian air rolls in, so we get a foot of snow and you're right back at the freezer, getting out all your chow. That's called "Baltimore weather!"
• Finally: you're in line at the delicatessen. An attractive person takes the number following yours and lingers near the corned beef. You ogle her/him for 30 seconds. And that's "enough!" Or so her/his significant other says.