When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher (Mrs. Casselberry) had an area known as “The Special Place”.  While it sounds like a destination that would land most elementary school teachers in prison for an extended period of time, it was actually quite innocent.  This was 1984 and my school was designed in the open classroom pod model.  There was no teacher occupying the “pod” across the way, so Mrs. Casselberry claimed it as her own.

Students were allowed to go over to “The Special Place” once they had completed their classwork and behaved well.  Once there, we could play board games, work on extra credit, read, etc.  My friends and I usually chose to spend our time making up long division problems to solve on the chalkboard.  Yes, I was just that cool.

One afternoon, Bobby (a fifth grader!) brought the new Fat Boys tape over to “The Special Place”.  He asked me … me! … if I wanted to plug in one of the sets of giant plastic-covered cushioned headphones that we all knew and loved to listen to the music.  But, of course!  Somewhere between “The Fat Boys are Back” and “Human Beat Box, Part 2″, I started talking to Bobby about how much I loved the tape.  Apparently, the heavy foam headphones prevented me from realizing how loudly I was talking.  Mrs. Casselberry marched over to us with a stern look on her face and ordered us back to our desks.  I was banned from “The Special Place” for a whole week due to being unruly and distracting those who were still working.

I write all that to share this …

To the woman who frequents the treadmills at the YMCA around 4:00pm on weekday afternoons:

We can all hear you sing off-key to the videos on CMT.  I turned up the volume in my own headphones while watching “Hardball” and I could still hear you.  I’m sure that you are very proud to know all of the words to “Lost in This Moment” and “Wasted”.  Kudos!  However, when a fellow runner lets you know that we have all become your unwilling audience, I really don’t think that “I’m just singing a little bit … I’m not bothering anyone” is an accurate response.