Much like Obama’s approval rating, the readership for my blog is at an all-time low.

Has my writing become subpar? Did the fact I went through a stretch where I wasn’t updating my blog consistently cause my readers to look elsewhere for the funny? Did I have a lot more Michael Jackson fans in the audience than I realized?

Since I cannot pinpoint the reason, I’ll take a cue from good ol’ Barack’s playbook and distract people from the current, sorry state that is the Land of SKOS (aka this blog).

No, I won’t be wearing “mom jeans” while throwing out the first pitch to the all-star game. But I will do something almost as distracting and disturbing.

I’m going to start walking like a pimp again.

Yes, there was an “again” at the end of that sentence.

Come with me, if you will, back to the year 2003. It was my first year after college (for my undergrad degree, anyway) and my first year as a teacher. I found out a lot of things about myself that year. For example, I discovered speaking in public wasn’t as terrifying as I’d always imagined it would be. I was pretty good at it, in fact. I discovered that my knack for remembering seemingly mundane details and facts could come in handy for something other than trivia games.

And I discovered I walked like a pimp.

This interesting tidbit was pointed out to me by one of my freshmen students.

“Mr. (Last name omitted to protect the innocent — aka me), you walk like a pimp,” a student excitedly told me one day after class.

After giving him detention, changing his grade in my class to a “F” and telling him his head was too big for his body (that’s what we teachers do, you see… we’re evil), I asked him to elaborate.

“You walk around with a strut like you’re the baddest man on the planet.”

Resisting the urge to assign him a 70-page paper while throwing spitballs at him, I thanked the student for his helpful insight and sent him on his way.

Now, I am 99% certain the “strut” this student saw was due to my having a sore knee. The sore knee, my compensating for the sore knee, and the fact I walked around with a diamond-tipped, mahogany cane while wearing a feather boa all likely contributed to this “pimp” persona imagined by the student.

Still, the fact remains I used to give the illusion of confidence when I walked.

I realize I’m pretty random, but believe it or not there is an inspiration behind this particularly silly blog post. In my last post, a regular reader with the most awesome name of “Kevin” left me the following comment:

“Make sure you develop a walk to fit your new posture. You could develop a John Wayne swagger, but that would require spurs on all your shoes. A better alternative is a fast, confident, power stride. The faster you walk, the more confidence you have. This is why I sprint everywhere I go.”

With Kevin’s suggestion in mind, I remembered my pimp-walking days.

Time to test out my new walk and strut around the office building.