Good Girls Don't Always Finish First

She was tall and thin with black curly hair, and she barely registered on my radar except in that way all naturally fluffy people such as myself notice the uber-thin; it was a half jealous and half ‘somebody get her a sandwich’ kind of way.  It was race morning, and I was too focused on my case of pre-race jitters to pay too much attention to anyone else, although I knew I recognized her from other local races. 

That morning before I left, Kelly had asked if I wanted him to come watch.  Running races as an adult is sort of embarrassing.  It’s not like when you’re a kid, and you believe the greatest privilege anyone could hope for is to watch you perform one of your many random acts of greatness.  What do you really hope to accomplish as a not-so-fast adult in a small-town 5K?  The best I could possibly do was place in my age division but only because there wouldn’t be many running in that category to start with.  It’s like winning third place in a beauty pageant with only four contestants.  There’s a trophy, sure, but no glory.  

I came in second of two runners.
I smile to cover my shame.

I assured Kelly there was no need for him to leave the house at the heinie-crack of dawn to come watch me do something I did most days of the week, and that for me it was just like my normal morning run- I would just have some company.

Despite all this sensibility and practicality, there I was, fidgeting with my headphones and running app, and feeling the butterflies build in my stomach.  I’ve ran a handful of 5Ks, but it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself it’s NO BIG DEAL, I always feel as though I’m going to throw up before I even start.

There was a pretty good crowd there, including Olive Oil, and we all took off at the starter’s signal.  We were on my stomping grounds in Calico Rock – the place that I always do my runs if possible – down a quiet little park through which a wide creek flows, past the ghost town of old Calico Rock, and down a sandy road no more than ten feet from the cold, trout-filled White River. 

Seriously!  Does anyone have a prettier place
to run??

Some participants took off like farts in a whirlwind, some were walking, and then there were those of us in the middle.  My only goal was to finish the race in less than thirty minutes, so I tried to not worry myself about the people around me.  I settled into my pace and focused on my music.

It takes serious motivational music for me to run.  By serious motivational music, I mean loud, angry rap music with a strong, steady bass.  Oftentimes after a good run, I feel an unexplained urge to bust a cap in somebody or knock over a convenience store.  When my country-loving adult friends accidentally spy my playlists, I claim that I’m researching popular music in a continued effort to better connect with my students. 

So, it was me and Eminem, and I was determined to lose myself in the music and take advantage of my one opportunity to blow, when I realized tall, dark, and cadaverous was on my heels.  I should have let her go on by without a second thought.  I should have kept to original goal, which did not involve beating anything or anyone but my current personal best time.  I should have offered to take her to Subway for that sandwich she so obviously needed, but I happened to glance ahead, and saw her family cheering her on.  Her husband and son were there, at the race, and were now yelling at her, spurring her on to pass… me?!?

Well, I don’t think so.  The fiery dragon of competition lifted his head inside my bosom and demanded that I stay in front of her.  I made like Gandolf and declared that she “SHALL NOT PASS!!”  We were approaching Calico’s version of Heartbreak Hill – a short forty-five degree incline coming out of the river valley and back into the old part of town.  Skinny Minnie was literally breathing down my neck, her husband and son were jumping and screaming, and I turned on the afterburner.  I ran up that hill like a jackrabbit with a wolf on its tail.

She stayed close to me.  I know that in her mind, the honor and love of her family was at stake.  I know she was trying to pass me before she got out of sight of her beloved ones so they see her glory, and I KNOW she was thinking I eat too many sandwiches.  She could eat my shorts though and so could her supportive family because as we turned the corner and passed out of sight, I was still in the lead. 

My heart was pounding, my legs were made of lead, and my breath was coming in ragged puffs.  I was running faster than I ever did in my daily workouts.  All I could hope for was that Long-Legged Sally was running beyond her endurance too, but she pulled even with me as we went into the last mile of the race. 

The final mile was a half-mile back down the park, a turn around, and then a mad dash back along the same road.  There were three loops at the end of the road, and a volunteer was standing at the third, and farthest, loop to mark how far runners needed to go.  Knock-Kneed was still running with me, but I had spent months practicing how to ‘finish strong’ and knew I had it in me to sprint the last two tenths of the mile.  My racing goal had drastically altered, and I prayed she wouldn’t be ready for the ‘speed’ I was about to unleash. 

This is where it all went to heck in a hand basket.  As we neared the end of the road and were approaching the final loop, Hatchet-Faced Biddy veered off and looped back toward the finish line at the FIRST LOOP!  I slowed and looked at her astonishment, and then looked at the race volunteer, expecting her to call Cheater-Pants back.  Instead, she made huge hand motions AT ME, and yelled, “This is the turn-around!”

The scene of the crime

You know how it went from there.  I had to keep running down the road while the malnourished fraudster was already headed back toward victory.  Jackie Joyner-Kersee couldn’t have caught her at that point.  She was so far ahead of me as we came down those last tenths of the mile that I had no hope of catching her, aaaaaaand sure enough, her husband and son had made it back to the finish line in time to celebrate her big win over… me.

I kept thinking the race volunteer would show up and disqualify her, but no.  As we stood there in the crowd getting the awards, she got first in our age group, and I got second.  The whole time I was giving her my evil eyeball.  If I’d had a chicken leg to shake at her, I would have tried a voodoo curse.  I wanted to confront her, but there was that whole “We’re Adults” thing, and I didn’t want to look like a sore loser.

I vowed vengeance that day.  I knew there would be other races and other opportunities, and that I would one day blow. her. out. of. the. water, but that summer we started renovations on our house and then school started back and then basketball season started, and by that time I had quit running completely.

Well, I’m coming back.  I’m only walking and jogging now, but it won’t be long.  My eye is on you, Underfed Infidel.  You and I will meet on the racecourse again. 

I hope that since the day of your deceit, guilt has niggled at the corners of your mind whenever you look at your winner’s plaque, which is no doubt displayed prominently in your home.  When we step to the starter’s line surrounded by thirty or forty runners, you will feel the heat of my gaze and know that the competition really only has two contestants.  My husband and children will be there cheering me on.  When the winner of the Women’s Age 40-44 plaque is called, you will not step forward.  I probably won’t either.  The only thing I do know is that I will finish the race ahead of you. 

Consider the gauntlet thrown. 

Possum Piñata

     In his early twenties, my husband began renovating a house his grandfather had purchased for two mules and a wagon in the 1940s.  It was the kind of house realtors call a “fixer-upper.” Nestled in a beautiful, wooded valley a short walk from the White River, the home had everything you could hope for in location but severely lacked in other niceties people expect out of their humble abodes, like insulation, decent window screens, or air conditioning. 

A view like this makes air conditioning
seem less important.

     One hot summer night he was awoken from sleep in his sweltering bedroom because of a strange sound coming from the kitchen.  He went in to investigate and discovered a possum sitting on his dinner table eating his light bread.  It was the kind in the package with the little girl on the front.  Sunbeam Giant; his favorite kind.  The possum had chewed a hole in the plastic and had his head burrowed deep into the bread bag when Kelly walked in and flipped on the light switch.

     It’s something of a surprise to find wildlife in your home.  How had it gotten in?  Did he have a heretofore-undiscovered roommate?  Then he noticed that the screen in the kitchen, which had only been tacked onto the frame with little nails, was askew, and the possum’s path into the home had been discovered.

     If your only interactions with possums have occurred as you drove down the highway and saw Mr. Opossum lying squished on the road, then you might think possums just aren’t that scary.  You might think that finding one on your kitchen table eating your light bread would be no. big. deal.  Possums are known for ‘playing possum’, and some people might think this one would have just fallen over and played dead. You might think you could pick its seemingly lifeless body up off the table where it had fainted clean away and gently place it outside in its natural habitat.   

A possum acting like decent possums should act

     You might be wrong.  Possums have a mouthful of razor-sharp needlelike teeth, and they hiss when in danger.  This particular possum was more interested in playing mountain lion than possum, and it lifted its head, bared its teeth, and hissed at Kelly.  Getting a possum out of your home is something that can only handled by the manliest of men, and fortunately, my husband ranks at the top of that list.  In a feat of courage not possible for an ordinary man, he was able to get the possum out of his house without harming either himself or the possum, and he fixed the window screen.  The only major loss was the light bread.

     Kelly forgot about the possum incident in the way that manly men do and went back to bed.  The next night when he went back to the kitchen in the inky darkness to get a drink of water, the possum was not on his mind. It’s important here for you to know that Kelly was au naturel, in the buff, nekkid, and you don’t make judgments about that because you know you would do it too if your house was a thousand degrees in the hot summertime; besides, it was pitch black, and there was no one around to see him.

     He headed to the sink, enjoying the gentle breeze through his avenue, when the unthinkable happened.  As he neared the counter, Kelly suddenly felt a searing pain flash through his nether region.  It came to him in a flash that the possum had somehow made its way back into his home, had this time been perched on the countertop, and had now reared up and sank its teeth into the most precious part of any man’s anatomy.

     As pain washed through Kelly’s body, he knew he couldn’t go down without a fight.  I like to think that his subconscious mind knew he had more children to father and was by golly not going to give up the possibility of having those kids.

     He curled his massive hands into even more massive fists and began punching the possum as hard as he could.  Over and over, he pounded those fists into the marsupial attached to his anatomy in a futile effort to free himself from its razor grip.  With each pound, it seemed the possum only ground its teeth into him with more ferocity, and the future of the Hatman Clan was dangling in the balance.  In the midst of the onslaught against the toothy critter, a small tendril of thought floated through Kelly’s mind that something was not right.  In his fear and pain-stricken mind, it was hard to think straight, but something was wrong about the situation other than having ten pounds of needle teeth and claws hanging from your undercarriage. 

     It hit him in a moment of perfect clarity.  It was no possum.  As he’d neared the sink to get his glass of water, he’d brushed against the countertop which had one of those old-fashioned metal bands that had buckled and warped over the years surrounding the edge, and his precious bits had gotten caught between the band and counter edge.  As the pinching began, and because of the prior possum incident, he assumed what any thinking man would assume and had gone on an offensive against the… countertop.  He had been whaling the fire out of that countertop, which was only causing the band to pinch him harder, which was causing him to hit harder… Well, you see how that vicious cycle was playing out. 

The hidden kitchen danger you never see on any list

     He managed to calm down enough to carefully extricate himself from the countertop and band.  His knuckles were bloody and other portions of his body had suffered damage too.  The pain eventually went away, and, much to Kelly’s chagrin, so did the swelling.  The possum never turned up again inside the house; it turned out he had fixed the window screen the first little sucker had gotten through after all.

     The lasting effects?  None, except a good story that can be a little hard to tell in polite company. 

If things had played out differently,
this picture might have never happened.

The Mother Competition

With every passing Mother’s Day, moms everywhere are given the chance to reflect on upon one of the most important events to happen in their lives – Who will win the Mother Competition this year?

Anyone who has spent serious time in a rural church knows exactly what I’m talking about.  When I was a kid, each Mother’s Day, the conscientious pastor would visit his local flower shop and purchase three single carnations, each tied with a ribbon bow, to present to the lucky winners.  Youngest Mother?  Carnation.  (In later years, it became politically correct to turn this award into Mother with the Youngest Baby because no one wanted to present 14-year-old Jennifer with an award for having a kid.)  Oldest Mother?  Carnation.  Mother with the Most Children?  Carnation. 

My family was so poor we couldn’t pay attention.  We didn’t have nice cars, a nice house, nice clothes, or nice shoes, but there was something we had in abundance, and that was kids.  We had little to be proud of, but we rocked at the Mother Competition because our mom won the carnation for Mother with the Most Children every. single. year.

Determining the winner is always an event.  First all mothers stand up, and the pastor begins to winnow out the losers mothers who have one child, two children, three children, and so on.  Singly and in groups, mothers have to sit down because they chose to not fully fill their respective quivers.  Finally, there is one mother standing (that would be our mother), and the pastor would say something along the lines of, “Mrs. Patsy, six kids does it again this year!” and our mother would proudly walk down the aisle and claim her prize. 

Those were good days for us kids.  We’d done our duty to our mother, and by golly, we all felt like we had a little stake in that carnation.  Nothing smelled sweeter or was more enjoyed than that single flower, stuck into an old mason jar of water. 

Sometimes there were scares.   A new mother might show up and steal someone’s glory.  Nobody forgot the year that Mrs. Gilley had her thunder stolen for Mother with the Youngest Baby when a complete stranger turned up at church on Mother’s Day with a baby two days younger than little Gracie.  It was just Plain Wrong, and we all suspected the offending mom had planned her fraud with cunning akin to that of Satan himself at the fall of Adam and Eve.  One year a family came walking down the aisle with a bevy of children, and we were sweating as we counted… one, two, three, four… five!  Five kids.  We scoffed at five kids. 

The practice fell out of fashion as we got older.  There were mutters that the annual Mother Competition caused hard feelings in the church, and the award carnations gave way to carnations for every mom.  Sore losers is what I say.  By the time we were grown up, moved away, and attending churches of our own, every woman got a carnation whether she had even ever had a child.

Imagine my chagrin when, on that particular Mother’s Day Sunday, I was talking with my mom about her new church, and she told me carnations had been given out in the traditional Mother’s Competition.  I asked her if she’d won one (knowing full well she had), and she told me the sad news that it was for the mother that had the most children PRESENT at church that day, and the award had gone to Mrs. Anderson with her paltry four children. 

That would never do.  The next year, in a covert operation that would have made the FBI envious, I made certain every single one of my siblings showed up at my parent’s church.  As we trickled in, first she was surprised, and then she cried, and we were all so happy knowing that not only was our momma happy to have all her chicks once again under the protective cover of her wings, but Mrs. Anderson could suck it.  Once again that Sunday, mom walked up proud and claimed her rightful carnation.  I may or may not have thumbed my nose at Mrs. Anderson’s oldest child.  Sure she was only twelve, but she knew EXACTLY what I meant by it.

We went back year after year.  My younger brother, Josh, never darkened a church door any other day of the year, but he was by golly there on Mother’s Day.  It took all of us.  Mrs. Anderson had rallied and squeezed out another offspring, and we couldn’t stand to tie her for first place. 

Finally, one year my mother told us that she wasn’t attending church on Mother’s Day.  Our family had grown so large with grandchildren that she couldn’t cook for everyone in the time she had after church and needed to stay home to make the meal.  Our new tradition came to be all the girls coming over early and spending the morning helping to cook, and a sweet new tradition for Mother’s Day was born. 

This past Sunday, as I was reflecting back on the Mother Competition, I asked my mom if she wouldn’t like to go to church, have us all attend with her, and win the carnation again for old times sake. 

Then she said words that rocked my world. 

“No,” she said.  “I don’t want to do that.  It always embarrassed me to win that carnation.”

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!?  I couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d told me she’d once been a short-order cook who rode with the Hell’s Angels and had first invented the Hot Pocket as a handy ‘meal on wheels’ that could be held in one hand. 

My world has been shaken this week.  Everything I knew to be true about life is a lie.  I have five children.  I could have stopped after two if I’d known the Mother Competition is an EMBARRASSMENT and not a sought-after prize. 

What other long-held misconceptions do I have?  The next thing I know, she’ll be saying something else ridiculous like drinking alcohol won’t send me to Hell.