by George Beckerman

If Sara was anything, she was competitive. It started right out of the womb. When her incubator was placed in the last row of the newborn nursery, she somehow managed to nudge it all the way to the front and into the primo center spot for parental baby viewing.

Sara turned her grade school tryout for The Nutcracker into a one-person show by auditioning for all the parts. And almost pulled it off, playing ten of the fourteen characters. After which, she was diagnosed by the school psychologist with FOFO. Fear Of Fucking Obscurity.

In high school, when she learned her grade average was second best by one-tenth of a point, Sara convinced the principal that she was actually number one when calculating by using the original math system invented by the Sumerians around 3000 BCE. And in her junior year at college she was appointed Homecoming Queen AND King by virtue of changing her pronouns. One could get the feeling that Sara would leave even Tracy Flick in the dust.

And that brings us to humanity’s newest competitive rage…steps. Like many of us, Sara became obsessed with getting in as many as possible every single day. She wore a Fitbit on her right wrist to double-check the Apple watch on her left. And this time, Sara only had one competitor. The ultimate. Herself.

Every day, Sara was intent on beating her previous day’s number. Every. Day. And when it looked like she would come up short, Sara used desperate measures, like intentionally drinking an enormous amount of water before bed so that she can get additional steps in during the night walking to the bathroom and back.

Now a parent, with a ten year old child, Sara’s daughter’s pet hamster Binky caught her eye. She studied how the rodent would spend endless hours on its exercise wheel. This was right in Sara’s wheelhouse.  A step-counter’s dream. So naturally, she had a human-sized wheel custom made and off she went. Or at least, round and round she went.  Her and Binky, side by side in their respective adult and pet rotating rings. The poor four-legged Cricetus was so confused, it stopped circling and died of disorientation. In the back of her mind, Sara won. Her daughter, however, didn’t speak to her for a month.

Bored with her wheel, Sara needed more. And that came on the fateful day that while going round and round, she saw the film, “Forrest Gump” on her exercise tv.  Her favorite scene, without question, was when Gump jogged across America, accompanied by a growing crowed of admirers. Sara was excited. If he could run through the country, she could certainly walk. Imagine the millions of steps.

So Sara hopped off the wheel, laced up and off she went.

On her stepfest across the contiguous forty-eight states, Sara was mugged in Newark (he took her Fitbit), attacked by a bear in North Dakota (bear grabbed her Apple watch), fell into a sinkhole in Alabama (kept on stepping until she was hoisted out by a helicopter) and was bitten by a rattlesnake in Texas (she bit it back)

Months later, when Sara, tattered and tired, but accomplished, arrived home, she tallied her steps. Twenty-seven million, four hundred thousand and sixty-six, She was elated, but sadly, there was no one there to celebrate with. Just a note her husband left. He…stepped out and took their daughter with him. So unlike Forrest Gump’s odyssey, nobody cared. And eventually, the step fad, as all fads do, faded.

CAUTION: Watch your step.   Or your child might end up with a stepmother.