Running scared?

I may have accidentally agreed to do a sponsored run for charity.
Last Friday, as I’m sure you know, was ‘The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’ 
We didn’t do anything at work because we often have collections for local charities anyway, and because we have our own charitable organisations that we raise money for, so we can’t join in with every special event that comes along or we’d be pestering our customers for donations every day.
Now - the explanation I’ve just written seems quite good to me, and if I’d explained it that way to Mrs Barraclough on Friday, everything would have been fine. But unfortunately I was in one of my feisty ‘can’t be bothered; please keep customers away from me’ moods on Friday, so when she approached me and asked why we hadn’t done anything, I said something like “If MacMillan wants to have nurses named after him, maybe he should pay for them himself.”
Obviously if I’d known that Mrs Barraclough lost her sister to cancer last month I would have reined in my flippancy somewhat, but as so often happens with me, the gob was open and spouting nonsense long before the brain assessed the situation. So Mrs Barraclough, understandably in my opinion, complained about me. 
In a long conversation with Ginger Graham and Carl (our ‘Customer Services’ manager and self-proclaimed Saviour Of The Universe) it was suggested that I should make ‘a personal gesture to ensure reparations of the customer/company relationship status.’
Carl thought I should donate a percentage of my months wages to a hospice of Mrs Barraclough’s choice. Graham thought I should arrange a belated coffee morning and invite her as guest of honour. Determined to avoid both those possibilities, I heard myself stupidly saying “No. I should have to do something myself to raise money. It’ll be good publicity for the supermarket if one of their managers is eating Humble Pie and doing something for the community. I can get sponsored, and the company can match all donations, and we can have a lovely photo opportunity where you hand over a cheque to MacMillan with Mrs Barraclough standing beside you. And it should be something I really hate as well, to prove that I am genuinely sorry for my comments.”
So I suggested a sponsored run….
They both became orgasmic at the idea, and ran off to prepare press releases and to convince themselves it was their idea entirely, while conveniently forgetting that I was going to get sacked if there was ever one more complaint about me.
I am The Golden Boy again, and have avoided a potentially damaging disciplinary procedure.
Now I just have to learn how to run.

RC 2-10-13