Ten Thousand Steps

Just had to get 'em in.

For the past week, ads to get in shape had been appearing in Henry’s online feeds. He had searched the topic once but now all the ads were geared towards that. In his mind, they were there to stay.

The one piece of advice he was able to implement without even clicking on the ad was titled ‘10,000 Steps a Day.’ That’s it. He could count the steps manually or he could use an app to help him keep track, but that would require figuring out how to download and configure it, which meant it wasn’t going to happen.

Counting manually was tedious and boring, but it did keep his mind active. And running was completely out of the question since he hadn’t run anywhere in years.

“Gladys,” Henry said. “I’m starting today on that 10,000 steps thing.”

“Don’t overdo it, Henry. You know how you get sometimes.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Glad. I’ll be fine. I’m going to be counting them too. One by one.”

“Oh dear, Henry. Don’t lose track or you’ll have to start over. Why don’t you get an app for your phone? It’ll count your steps instead.”

“An app? What’s that? Pfft! I don’t need no blasted app. I can count, ya know.”

Two hours later, Henry peeked his head into the living room.

“Back so soon?” Gladys asked.

“Soon? I’ve been walking for two full hours. Got my 10,000 steps in too. Didn’t need to start over or anything. Well, come to think of it, it was more like 10,000 shuffles than steps. At 94, my legs just don’t make the strides they used to. 10,000 shuffles to the bathroom and back to the living room. Maybe I should bump it up to 15,000 a day.”

“Now Honey, don’t go overboard.”

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