Dad is a total science fiction geek, which might explain his skewed view on marathon training. I’m guessing he would hastily explain that it only takes six months to train for a marathon on the planet Zook in the 40th Quadrant, where a mile is only the length of a business card, and the reason it takes six months to train is because there is no gravity on Zook, so one stride will send you soaring into space until you get pulled into the Earth’s atmosphere, where you risk getting hit by a cell phone hurled by supermodel Naomi Campbell. Those Zook marathons may be short, but they are really brutal.
At the rate I’m going, I will be able to run a marathon by the time I’m eighty. At which point I’ll already be dead, because recent studies show that the average human being is now twenty times as likely to be struck by a celebrity’s cell phone than he was ten years ago, and those things can be fatal if they hit you the wrong way. The skinner those phones get, the shaper the edges, which means that the new Cingular DAGGR will be able to slice an artery when thrown from distances of up to 75 yards.
But I am still running, and at some point, I will reach one mile without stopping. I thought the muscle aches would slow me down, but a long time ago, my brother-in-law the surgeon told me to take four Advil instead of two. He said the dosage on the bottle was the wimpiest possible dosage, designed to prevent lawsuits. So I took four. And I’ve been taking four a day for the past couple of days. I can now stick a sewing needle all the way into my calf muscle without feeling a thing, which I guess should have me worried, but at least the muscle aches are gone, and I can keep running.
Television is another matter. There are some shows I can’t give up. CSI Miami is too much fun. I have choreographed my own dance called the Caruso:
You put your hands on your hips,
you stick your right hip out,
you put your shades on your head and you flip them up and down,
you squint at everybody and you always have to growl,
that’s what it’s all about!
Well worth the cost of basic cable.
While I have no qualms about admitting that I can’t give up Law and Order and CSI, I am embarrassed to admit that I’m also addicted to How I Met Your Mother. It has nothing to do with the love story. I just love Barney. I quote Barney. I quote almost every word that comes out of Barney’s mouth. "It's going to be legen ... wait for it ... and I hope you're not lactose-intolerant 'cause the second half of that word is ... dairy!" Ha ha ha ha!
Please don’t hit me. I just admitted I have a problem. That’s the first step.
Of course, watching TV has also given me a new commercial to hate. This week, it’s the DirecTV pissing contest. Two guys in an office. One says, "Good news – I just got a promotion!" And instead of congratulating him, the other says, "Better news – I got DirecTV." They then proceed to one-up each other, and the promotion guy loses.
In other words, the guy who worked hard, made a name for himself, and landed a promotion is a total loser compared to the guy who just paid a bunch of money to sit on his ass every night and weekend watching TV. If there is any truth and justice in this world, the follow-up commercial will show the promotion guy eventually taking over the company and demoting the DirecTV guy to the mail room. "Better news – you’re fired! Take a hike, satellite boy."
I’ll try again with the TV this week, and I will keep running. Speaking of which, gotta go. As Barney would say, it’s time for me to suit up. And stretch out this time before AND after. I can only take so many Advil smoothies.
Ramey Marx
April 1, 2006