A Modern Hankerchief

I love when certain events transpire as they might have, say during the Victorian era, but this time with a modern twist. 

It was any ordinary Friday night. After a LONG work week, I was ready for relaxing evening in - a little takeout, a good film, and a good night's rest. Before this fun, however, I decided a quick trip to my apartment's gym was in order to purge myself of all the negative energy from the week.  Nothing releases bad karma like the pounding of one's feet on a treadmill.

So there I was, running in an almost empty gym (one older man on a stationary bike in the corner), watching a rerun of The Daily Show, and keeping up my pace, when I noticed in the window's reflection in front of me a particularly dashing young man entering through one of the rear doors of the gym. I had seen him a few times before around the apartment complex. Tall, sturdy, with longish, dark blond hair. Definitely cute. 

I continued my run but every so often, I would slyly look up to see him lifting at the various weight stations that were behind the treadmills. He would break and pace the room, as people who lift weights tend to do (probably to give their muscles a rest?). 

I soon became more focused on a particularly humorous The Colbert Report.  I had begun to break a sweat so I went to grab my small towel to swab my brow. Grace and coordination not being part of my personal repertoire, the towel slipped and fell on the treadmill floor, which jettisoned the towel onto the floor behind me and just as the young man was walking by.

Bewildered at my clumsy act, I continued to run as if it hadn't happened. I stared straight ahead at the television, when suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the guy holding my gym towel and smiling at me. "I think you dropped this, " he said, handing it to me.  Apparently, the gym towel is the modern handkerchief. 

"Thank you," I replied, breathily with a smile.

As I walked back to my apartment after my workout, I couldn't help but smirk at the fact that I dropped my proverbial "handkerchief," which had been been picked up by a young man, just as it had been done hundreds of years ago. Neither Henry James or E.M. Forster could have conjured a more modern equivalent of chivalry. 

Image found here.