Must be the shoes.

"God, it's impossible to run in these things."

Both of the girls were late, and as I rapidly approached them, I heard one hit the nail right on the head. It is hard to run in those things, high heeled shoes, which is why girls shouldn't wear them, ever. They cannot be comfortable, and they make you walk extremely awkwardly. But even worse, they make you late to Jerry Seinfeld. Both of these girls were struggling in vain to pick up the pace, which was extremely inconvenient, as Jerry was scheduled to come on at 9:30. My phone said it was 9:29. They'd come to hear some jokes, not realizing that the joke was on them: they'd gotten their parking spot earlier, but I was about to blow by them, all because they wanted to make sure their calves looked more appealing that night.

"You're gonna run?" I'd heard Jamison ask about 30 seconds earlier, when it was 9:28, right as I started to turn on the jets. He works outside in the hot sun all day on an organic farm, picking vegetables and getting tired. Plus, Jamison is much more "chill" than me. It was clear he didn't want to run. But I had the tickets, and I wasn't waiting for him. So he started to run, too.

I was flying. Gliding is more like it, actually. It felt like recess. I half expected a tire swing to be waiting for me around every bend and corner. Running hasn't been that much fun in years. "Must be the shoes," I thought to myself, giggling almost.

Flash back three hours, to an outdoor patio bar in Austin. It's Friday afternoon, the sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky, and I'm drinking good beer. Life is good. And I am explaining to my boss why it is exactly that I love working at the company I work for.

Extremely casual any-day-that-ends-with-Y

"I mean, anywhere that lets me wear Pumps to work," I said, "is a place I want to work."

If you give me an inch, I will most certainly take a mile. Despite being an office with cubicles, computers and Xerox machines, no one seems to care what anyone wears at my job, as long as you're not naked pretty much. I wear collared shirts to make it look like I'm trying, but the truth is that I am chilling when it comes to my professional wardrobe. One of the more senior employees referred to my style yesterday as "pajama style." Others call it the "Bayless look." I call it keeping it real. I certainly don't wear high heels.

My boss looked down at the works of art on my feet, the ones that scream, "I AM WEARING SHOES! YOU ARE NOT MISTAKEN! I AM MOST DEFINITELY, WEARING, SHOES!" and made an incredulous look. "Those aren't pumps," she said, dismissively, as if I must be a complete retard.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, dismissively, as if she must be a complete retard.

"Those are not pumps. Pumps are ladies' shoes."

"Yes... and these are Pumps, too."

"No," she said, "they're not."

"Yes," I said, holding out the tongue that says the word "pump" on it in bolded red letters, so she could see how wrong she was, "they are."

Her eyes scanned the letters: p-u-m-p, and her eyebrows loosened a bit. "Oh." The sound of victory. "I thought you were talking about ladies' shoes."

"Yeah, I heard you."

How does someone my age, a fellow member of Generation Text Me, not know what Reebok Pumps are? I stored the incident away in my mental file cabinet, the one that is labeled, Things I Will Give People Shit for for the Rest of Their Lives.

Flash forward now, back to the two girls in pumps.

"God, it's impossible to run in these things."

Do you ever feel like you're in a dream? Like you're starring in "The Truman Show?" Like the existence of God is proven by moments in your life that just seem like they've been scripted? Any time someone tees something up for me like that, I feel all of these things simultaneously.

She was in pumps. I was in Pumps. We were both late. But only one of us had any chance of making it in on time.

That would be me.

Coming up right behind them faster than Dale Jr. on a grandma driving home from Tuesday night bingo, I did not even stop as I riddled their pathetic bodies with a drive by of abuse: "Think if you'd been wearing THESE Pumps instead of THOSE pumps!" I yelled in their faces.

"AHH!" one screamed. The other made the loudest inhalation in the history of breathing. Both were terrified and confused. Jamison wasn't terrified, but he was amused, even though he didn't even hear what I'd yelled at these poor, defenseless girls, whose calves were supposed to look mighty appealing.

I bounded down the stairs that lay ahead two, three at a time, as I left them with one parting sentence.

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU'D BE DOING RIGHT NOW!!"

The moral is this: keep it casual, be yourself, don't worry about how your calves look, and good things will happen to you.

(Although, those girls made it with plenty of time to spare. I didn't realize someone as big time as Jerry Seinfeld would have an opening act.)