50 on Hat Man

Invariably, every morning I somehow find myself walking behind this man with a limp. It's a huge, crazy limp, paralysis, more like it, and I think to myself, "Great, I'm going to have to slow down because he's limping all over the place." But the thing is, he's really fast. I don't have to slow down at all because I can hardly keep up with him.
I meant to write this when it was still cold out, that's how long I've been thinking about it. I would think about someone looking down at us leaving the parking garage and taking bets like we were racing. I can hear the announcer: Annnnd they're off! Limping Man is coming hard down the straightaway and Hat Man is close behind! Folks this is going to be a tight one, Hat Man really wants it today, but Limping Man looks like he's going to take it again!
You see, I wear this fedora...Indiana Jones hat in the winter. I'd like to get another one for spring, but...back to the Limping Man.
So it puzzled me, every day, why this man, who had had some sort of stroke, was walking so much faster than I was. I thought about that Kids in the Hall skit with the guy who walked incredibly slow. Was that me? Was my disdain for working Where-I-Work physically slowing me down? I wasn't sure.
Then it came to me while I was walking with my daughter. Molly is three, so walking with her entails a lot more physical activity than walking, say...by myself. First there's walking, which turns into marching. This soon evolves into running, and then skipping. Then...we do the "Scooby-Doo" walk, big long slow strides like you're sneaking up on someone? Yeah, I can hear the Neighbor Hood Watch pulling down their blinds. This all eventually leads to hopping like a frog, down the street, looking like one of those Mentoring commercials. It was the skipping and the frog-hopping that made me realize something.
Skipping down the road looks fantastically gay. But, it's a lot faster than walking. So is running, you say? Well, people who run, dressed in slacks and a tie, look like a lawyer who just forgot his client was on the stand. Also, I'm wearing leather-soled shoes, I'm not running in them.
Besides, skipping and running would garner too much attention, and that's something I worry about, if you read iPhantom.
What does all this mean? It means Limping Man is faking it. He had came up with the same conclusion that I had about skipping being gay and running being crazy, and decided, the only way to go any faster than walking was to come up with a limp. He covers a lot of ground, tossing his leg out in front of him and catching up to it. He takes the stairs like a champ, and it doesn't seem to bother his driving. Sometimes I think he might know I'm onto him because I don't slow my gait anymore. I'm trying to keep up with him, and he still gets to the stairwell before me. The walk I'd perfected over nearly three decades was my own specific gait, I thought I did well with it- just to find that his mode of transportation, though seemingly flawed, granted him far greater distance and speed. How could I have been so wrong?

Bravo Limping Man. But I feel like my luck's about to change...maybe I will start running.

Or skipping.