I’m slow. Very. I mean I do things slowly. Everything. Rushing about is for people who like to do that sort of thing. Rushing is just so bourgeois. Slow is the only way to go. Slow rules.

At restaurants for example, I’m just chewing my way through the appetizer while my dinner companions are ordering cognac and cigars. But I put everyone at ease by telling them to just go ahead, don’t mind me, I’ll be fine, that I’ll continue with my entrée and will meet them later in the parking lot. I frequently bring home lots of containers with half-finished dinners in them and they are not “doggie bags.” No dog I ever owned was allowed to have those delicacies, and besides, I don’t have dogs any more anyway. And sorry, but it’s the dog’s karma to be a dog and spend a lifetime chomping on dog chow while it’s mine to be a human and spend mine chomping on sweetbreads and petits fours.

Another example of my love for the slow is this; when everyone decides to go out for a constitutional (which is what a walk used to be called back when today’s antiques were simple household conveniences) I am the one lagging two blocks behind. Everyone’s doing this healthful striding. I’m moving along smartly at a bracing shuffle, but I’m enjoying it a lot more than those speed freaks are. How can they smell the roses and see dragon flies when they gallop along so, when the scenery is just a blur? Honestly, some people.

You know what I don’t understand about slow movers such as I? Since I walk and move so slowly, how come it is that when my hip or some other part of me comes in contact with a piece of furniture or an appliance as I’m moving forward, it slams into it so hard I have a black bruise for months? I absolutely never move fast enough so that I should collide with things with any force at all. But I do. It’s weird. Oh, wait a second. I think I remember something from a Physics course I never actually took, but no one can really check on that because my old school burned down. Anyway, it’s the Law of Inertia, and it states that “a body in motion tends to stay in motion.” So I guess that means that when I’m schlepping along at the slowest pace imaginable and some part of me hits against something, I’m the body staying in motion and the thing I smashed into is what’s not staying in motion, so I get the black bruise. Is that how all that works?

One time a young smart-aleck grandson of ours said in passing, “Gramma, you walk slower than a sick slug on sandpaper in Death Valley in August.” Oh yeah? Well, maybe. Who cares? I eventually get to my destinations.

What’s my favorite animal you ask? What else? The Three Toed Sloth. Now, that’s a great animal. Never moves fast, just slowly pushes along through life, no worries, no stress, beautiful eyes, sweet face, nice hair. The nails could maybe use a little work.

My other favorite creature? The turtle. You knew that, right? They just plod along, eating, taking the sun on a log, sliding into that nice warm lake for a little swim, chomping on a little minnow aperitif, sleeping all winter, and they’re always at home. Yeah. Sloths and turtles. Perfect.

My favorite fable? I’ll bet you know what it is. The Tortoise and the Hare. Oh that cunning tortoise. And smart? Yeah. He knew from the git that smart-a hare was all talk, all speed, and all stupid. That tortoise knew all he had to do was just slowly walk toward the goal, smelling those roses, catching a few rays, chatting up some butterflies along the way, and to smile as he passed that wascally wabbit with the attitude, sleeping in the sun. The race is not always to the swift, you know.

So that’s how it is, folks. I love slow. Speed is for demons. Slow is for the intelligentsia, and thus for me. And please, no lectures on that number six deadly sin. Sloth can’t possibly be a sin. Sloth rocks! Slowly. Gently. Easily.

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.