XC II

Once again, today was an extremely sucky day to run around a cross country meet in shorts. But guess what- Nelson Mandela had a sucky job for a while, so did Ghandi, and you know what- even Heffner did, well no, not really. But my point is that even when you're job sucks, you do it. We weren't fighting against apartheid, the caste system, or bath robe rights, but our job was still important. Cheer the girls cross country team to a resounding victory that would echo around the hills of Hines Park for decades to come.

After school I wandered over to Bert's car with Tripp and J-Lo. We hung out in the parking lot, but I couldn't relax. I knew the time I had been trained, groomed, and did those couple sit ups for was close...really close. I tried to joke it off, by my punch lines were falling lame as I couldn't get our duty, our obligation out of my head. Finally we piled into the car, stopped at the red light, proceeded with a left turn onto six mile and we were off. 45 mph never felt so fast. I was on pure adrenaline. We pulled into Bert's driveway and immediately got to work. We changed and headed out onto the driveway where we could paint in peace. We must have looked like total flamers to the busdriver who dropped kids off across the street and passed us three times that afternoon, but none of us care. We were totally willing to lay our dignity on the line.

As Noel stroked my stomach with orange paint, I couldn't help but hope nobody I know would see me. But that's the problem. I never want to be that douchebag in public who yells and is totally obnoxious: something was going to have to change. I would be screaming half naked with other men at a cross country meet. I was a little aprehensive.

Back to the paint. We had essentially a whole 'nother hour and a half to get primed for this meet than the previous one and we took full advantage of it. Every last detail, every last t-shirt modification, every last face paint streak. It was perfect. We even managed to put the letters in the right order this time, and my face paint was awesome. But this week we decided to step our shit up a level. How could we possibly do that? Rip our clothes off at the starting line. Dave and Tripp bought some XXXL hanes undershirts, which were barely big enough for my swimming muscles and huge ego, but they fit. Tripp looked like a little kid in a ghost costume- the one your mom makes out of a pillowcase and enters you into the halloween costume contest with. Anyway we primed our shirts for easy ripoffability. I managed to cut slits so the holes weren't obvious, but extremely strategic. The pants were a different story. It looked like a panther attacked me, but only my legs. There were gashes in my warm up pants all over. Lucky I didn't stab my leg with the scissors.

Game time. We wandered up to the starting line, and found an open space. The reason it was open was because we were standing right in the runners' line: oops. We were 'politely' asked to move as we chanted north-ville really really loud. Then came the time. All the girls were obviously disappointed that we didn't paint, after all we had our pants and t-shirts. All of the sudden we went king kong on our cotton and ripped that shit off. Jelso growled and berti just flexed his pecs and his shirt flew, I mean flew, off. I got the shirt off fine, but only half my pants ripped. I'm sure I could have ripped the other half, but I didn't. Everyone else threw their pants in every direction while I tried to get the leg off my foot. Then it really started. All the parents were looking at us as we bounced in no particular rythm yelling. It felt really good. Then the 'gun' went off and it was on. We sprinted to the 1 mile and got there in like 2 minutes. From there we went somewhere else, not too bad. But then came the finish, which was way far away-very very far away. But like Ghandi I too persevered and we got there in time. We yelled until I had to breathe again, but lack of oxygen couldn't stop my need to fufill my obligation, no, my gift. I yelled and yelled, and together the six of us were cocky x10. At the end we saw the Stevenson sideline, and guess what we did. We avenged our soccer team. Those same asses that promised a Stevenson victory were there, and we yelled across the park things like, "Stevenson sucks" and "How did you're team do Saturday, oh yeah, you lost...to us" We were outnumber alot to a little, but so was Leonitus. We casually walked back to the car in sheer joy. Mission accomplished. Ohh, and to all of you who wanted pictures. Yes. Word.