How Very Unfortunate for the Goldfinches

Today I intend to inflict a highly instructive experience with the gerund, that part of speech that sounds like a lot of fun if only one knew what it was. Here's what it is:

gerund, noun a part of speech in English that looks like an adverb but cannot function as an adverb, though it can function as very nearly everything else including a heat source, adhesive, and pliers; in an isolated instance it was even alleged to have been used as a blunt object in the 1859 murder of one Wm. Lamont Lamont, Esq., but this has seemed to most linguists a stretch, as the claim could only be corroborated by said Wm. Lamont Lamont, Esq., who, after his demise proved an uncooperative witness

The gerund, as you can see, is a very useful part of speech in that it affords a prime opportunity for diverting anecdotes. It can also be put to use in the example paragraph below, which, as an extra bonus, includes the gerund phrase as well. The gerund phrase has a close relationship with the gerund, but they have never married and continue to be “just friends.” They have a starring role in the following example paragraph:

Simon awoke on Tuesday with fanciful aspirations of running that morning. Simon thought of running in the early morning as a stress-relieving inauguration to the day. However, on Tuesday, the pouring rain put a stop to Simon’s foolish notions of maintaining a healthy habit of exercising daily. Simon found this disappointing, but not that disappointing because it meant an extra half hour of sleep. But the rain did not stop by the time Simon had to go to class, and Simon discovered that the pathway between the house and the parking lot seemed very like a swiftly flowing river. It turned out that sleeping in had not saved Simon the experience of running in the rain. Rather, Simon quickly became expert at jumping across, streams, puddles, lakes, and small oceans—and this was just to get to the path to campus. The path itself was also a river, which in some places turned into a waterfall. Looking for dry patches is a slow-going and tedious method of keeping dry, and Simon feared being late for class. The situation had become drastic. It seemed likely that a removal of footwear would behoove Simon, so this is what Simon did. With the umbrella in one hand, and sneakers in the other, Simon happily swished downriver, enjoyed the waterfall-steps immensely, daintily crossed the street, and skipped onto campus through puddles, wet grass, and mud. Unfortunately, having been slightly distracted by the joyful feeling of cold water on bare feet, Simon was late for class anyway. This is how Simon, who had previously given the impression of being a very ordinary, punctual person with shod feet, came to enter Latin 105 on a Tuesday morning looking befuddled, bearing a dripping umbrella and a tangle of socks and shoes, and track wet leaves across the carpet to the single left-handed desk, where, upon carefully bestowing the umbrella and shoes on the ground, sat down, our subject extended those bare and leafy feet, and proceeded to give no indication that this was not exactly the way everyone else had come in, too.

To challenge the grammatically adept, the gerunds may have been intermingled in the above fictional account of a certain fictional Simon and Simon’s fictional campus and the fictional downpour that caused Simon to miss five vital fictional minutes of Latin class with present participles and present participle phrases, the definitions of which involve a very long discussion of the activities of Mrs. Henry Middlesmith of Norfolk, Virginia, whose cat, Tilda, ate several under the impression that they were goldfinches—a mistake not uncommon in late nineteenth century Virginia--and which will be dispensed with at this time for the sake of brevity.