Continued from “Ready to Run” on Feb. 25, (which was edited today, March 3, to reflect the ‘technological issue’ I discovered and wrote about yesterday, March 2).

Suzanna slipped the “T.V.’s Great Music” cd into the top of the stereo and carefully turned the fuzzy faces of the speakers to the floor. If she was going to antagonize Barbara, she wasn’t going to do it half-assed.

“OK, now to loop,” she mumbled. Not normally liking to hear a song more than once,  it took Suzanna a few minutes to discover exactly how to make one track play repeatedly: repeatedly until she got back from her run. Which could take hours, if she stopped at Caribou Coffee on the way home for a blueberry muffin and satisfaction from a distance. The song was a little more than one minute long, with about ten seconds of lead time before its fanfare began in earnest. That would give her just enough time to lock the door and dash past Barbara’s lair. Barbara could beat with her cane all afternoon; it would be good exercise. Maybe it would even force the oldish lady to get out of her own house.

“It’s almost charity,” Suzanna smirked. She knew this would only escalate the tension between herself and her neighbor, but Suzanna did not want to care today. Her desperate attempts to be silent for Ms. Radcliffe had never won over the old bitch.

Today Suzanna was going to make some noise.

Snugging her navy blue cap into place and grasping her house keys in her right hand, Suzanna got into a runner’s stance. Her left index finger depressed the pause button. As she bounded out the building’s main door, she thought she could hear the trumpets.

And now let’s get things started

Why don’t you get things started

It’s time to get things started

On the most sensational inspirational celebrational…

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