Missed Opportunities

Some years before I was tricked into entering into a marriage contract to my current wife, I was working on a farm with my best friend Dave.  Dave and I worked off and on for different farmers in the area doing odd jobs. Sometimes we bucked hay, sometimes we drove tractor, we didn't care all that much what it was, as long as it paid. It was that or work for Don's dad at the bag factory. Don's dad was a great guy, but I didn't want to work another summer on the bag line. That bag line job was nasty-hot in the summer. Working outside in the summer on an apple farm was not all that bad.

 So one day, Dave and I finished working on a Saturday afternoon, we got paid and were driving home. Another friend of mine was having a party so Dave and I were talking about the remote possibility that one of us might convince some inebriated gal to suspend her puritan view of the human imperative.  The chances were slim, but we were maybe nineteen or twenty years old and didn't bother to calculate the odds.

Anyway, we were driving home in my truck but for some reason Dave was driving. I don't remember why. Anyway, like I said, we were headed home on I-90, listening to a cassette of Lynyrd Skynyrd, we just passed through Vantage when we saw two hitchhikers on the road. The hitchhikers were beautiful girls wearing, and I swear this is true, short shorts and bikini tops. Maybe in California it was common place to see that kind of thing, but in Eastern Washington, you just didn't see it. Girls in bikini tops looking for a ride?  Jackpot. I screamed at Dave to pull over and give them a lift. I was thinking that opportunities for worldly gentlemen such as ourselves didn't often present themselves in such a grand fashion and we needed to get those gals in the truck pronto. Charlie Bucket didn't walk away from the golden ticket, did he? Why should we?

A series of possibilities ran through my head in a millisecond, all of them culminating in some after hours activity involving myself and one or both girls. We need to stop the truck. I yell at Dave. He keeps driving. I scream 'Stop!' Dave keeps driving. I reach across and pull the wheel, Dave fights me off. Dave didn't stop. He just kept going. I started to cry. I will never forgive him.

Roll the clock forward twenty years and I am driving home from work. To get home, I have to drive past 'The Piranha Bar'. I am sure the bar has an official name but nobody knows what it is. It's just called 'The Piranha Bar' by all the locals because they used to have a sign out front that said '17 pound piranha'. I guess they had a big fish in a tank at one time. The sign isn't there anymore, I think the fish died.

Anyway, I am driving by and I see walking in the parking lot towards the front door of the bar three beautiful ladies with big hair and white one piece swimsuits and red high heels. The The swimsuits had red print on the front. The first girl had printed on her suit the word 'Bud', the second girl had 'wei' and the last 'ser'.

Either they were employed by the Budweiser company or they liked to wear swimwear in public and cause riots. In either case, the first thought that occurs to me after I see them is Dave driving past the hitch hikers.   Well, I guess it was the second thought. I had another thought first.

So what did I do? That's right, I drove home as fast as I could to tell my wife.

The lesson to be learned here might not be what you think. The lesson is this: If you get a chance to participate in an Ironman event, do it. It might not come around again. Seize the day.  Put on your big boy pants and run in an Ironman.

The weather is cruddy today so I swam this morning for an hour, then went to spin for an hour, then I came home and fell asleep on the couch.