There's nothing quite like getting home from work and checking the mail to see what awesomeness the post office brought you today. Well, I canme home from work, and opened the envelope that was in the mail, and was completely baffled at the following words:
"We've noticed that you have yet to register with us..." Yadda, yadda, yadda. Now, OK, it's obviously a sales technique, and I'm ok with that. I mean, I'm GLAD they're paying attention to the fact that I've not registered with them, that's all well and good. It makes me wonder, though, at the records-keeping/getting that this company uses, and just how it is they've managed to get my name. Oh, I'm sure there's a list out there somewhere that gets sold around and around, and my name's on it. That's great - but generally speaking, if I want a product, I'll look into purchasing said product and then take care of such things on my own. I don't really want people mailing me to tell me what I already know I haven't done, or worse, that I haven't purchased something I already know I don't really want to purchase.
But that's where this turns a little funny. See, the people telling me that I've not registered with them? AARP! Yes, the American Association of Retired Persons is very aware that I am not one of them! I am SO glad they've figured this out! Now, maybe - just maybe - this would be forgiveable if I was of the age where a membership in the AARP would be useful. I mean, if I was 55 and could actually GET benefits through the AARP, ok, I might be interested in buying....but they're juuuuuuuust a few years early on this - like 20 or so years. Really, AARP? I don't know how much you spent on this mailing and free offer of whatever sort (honestly, I stopped reading after about two sentences) but I'm pretty sure that it was some retiree's cash that helped pay for it. If you're going to spend someone else's money on stuff like this, shouldn't you at least do a better job of finding people who actually qualify for the product you're selling?
I was briefly tempted to send them back a letter that read something like this:
"Dear AARP -
Thank you so much for your invitation to join your fraternity - I didn't even know you were considering me! I am truly honored to be given the chance to wear your letters, and can't wait to begin receiving the benefits of membership immediately upon paying my dues. Obviously, since you contacted me, you understand the benefits I can bring to your organization, and therefore, I feel I should be rightly compensated immediately upon my acceptance of your gracious invite. Among the many things I can't wait to participate in:
Senior Day at Denny's
discounts on travel
no more paying income taxes
knowing the greeters at Wal-Mart by name
no more commuting
There are really so many, I just don't know if I can count them all. And, I get admitted early to your fraternity - you must really think me extra-special. Thank you! I really look forward to the Saturday night keggers!
Regards,
The Fat Kid
P.S. - I just filled out my retirement papers from work!!!"
I wonder what they would say? Moreover, I wonder how many people my age would send this back in and attempt to scam the system - it IS awfully tempting, after all. Of course, my better nature prevailed this time, and I didn't send it back, nor did I write such a letter. I will probably look them up online and tell them what a bunch of crack-pot researchers they have, to get my name on their list. Really, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that I don't really fit in with the retired persons crowd.
But in case I didn't feel old, yesterday, while running through the rain attempting to dodge the raindrops, I pulled that little tiny muscle in the back of the calf that basically means I won't be able to push off the ground with my toes for two weeks. Maybe I ought to re-think that application after all!
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Agony and the Ecstacy...
The year was 1965, and Rex Harrison and Charleton Heston (Pre NRA-Spokesman days) were on the screen together in "The Agony and the Ecstacy." I don't suppose many people my age remember or have seen this film - or if they have, they remember it as, "one of my parents' ideas of good film - before Die Hard came out" - but it is a classic. The story is about the trials of Michaelangelo (Heston) as he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the urging of Pope Julius II (Harrison). One line has always stuck with me from this film:
Pope Julius II: "When will you make an end of it?"
Michaelangelo: "When I am finished."
I SHOULD remember this exchange - as they keep saying it over and over, but the point here really isn;t about my fantastic ability to memorize lines that were repeated several times over in movies made well before I was born.
No, the point is, even in the off-season of cycling, the work is never done. You have to keep going, keep riding, keep stretching, keep thinking, keep doing. You can't really let up. If you want to race, there really is no off-season at all, there's simply "training season" and "racing season." I know what you're thinking:
Yeah, it's tempting to be like Elmer Fudd and just give up. Oh, so tempting. Luckily, the Fat Kid, co-founder of Masochism Central Industries, Inc. has JUST THE THING to keep you going: Initiate the P90X lifestyle!!!!!
The idea behind doing this, of course, is to become the Kid formally known as "fat." And, it might just work. If not, I will develop new thresholds of pain tolerance that will enable me to get back on the bike and push myself harder than ever before, and no longer care about the feelings of intense agony my body is telling me that it is experiencing. How do I know this? Well, day one was basically an hour of rowing, pull-ups, and pushups....on arms that haven't done those sorts of things in a very long while. Day two was an hour of plyometrics - or, the art of making muscles jump that are not supposed to do these things. Day Three...I have no odea what it was - frankly, I'm glad I don't have that DVD, because I might have exploded...or imploded...but I rested instead, to get ready for day 4, which will be an hour of yoga tonight.
Wait, yoga? Yep, Yoga. Not this guy:
or this guy.....
but something more like THIS guy!
(No, seriously, this guy's pretty good - but I haven't bent that way since I was three years old))
At any rate, because this is P90X - just yoga isn't good enough. No, it's time for fast-paced, super-yoga-fighting-force-extreme-troopers-with-roid-rage-on-caffeine....yeah, that type of yoga. Which means one basic thing: Tomorrow, I will be in pain, I'm sure. Either that, or I am going to be the most relaxed person on the face of the earth, for I will have worked everything out of my system. I'm voting for the former of those options, if the past couple of days have been any indication.
Now, here's where it gets odd (I know, it's already too late...): I can't wait!!!!! Yes, it's tough, and yes, I have a hard time keeping up. Yes, it's only been a couple of days of pain and I already hate the S.O.B. in charge of these workouts. But I want more. Why?
Because- I cannot make an end of it until I am finished.
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
Pope Julius II: "When will you make an end of it?"
Michaelangelo: "When I am finished."
I SHOULD remember this exchange - as they keep saying it over and over, but the point here really isn;t about my fantastic ability to memorize lines that were repeated several times over in movies made well before I was born.
No, the point is, even in the off-season of cycling, the work is never done. You have to keep going, keep riding, keep stretching, keep thinking, keep doing. You can't really let up. If you want to race, there really is no off-season at all, there's simply "training season" and "racing season." I know what you're thinking:
Yeah, it's tempting to be like Elmer Fudd and just give up. Oh, so tempting. Luckily, the Fat Kid, co-founder of Masochism Central Industries, Inc. has JUST THE THING to keep you going: Initiate the P90X lifestyle!!!!!
The idea behind doing this, of course, is to become the Kid formally known as "fat." And, it might just work. If not, I will develop new thresholds of pain tolerance that will enable me to get back on the bike and push myself harder than ever before, and no longer care about the feelings of intense agony my body is telling me that it is experiencing. How do I know this? Well, day one was basically an hour of rowing, pull-ups, and pushups....on arms that haven't done those sorts of things in a very long while. Day two was an hour of plyometrics - or, the art of making muscles jump that are not supposed to do these things. Day Three...I have no odea what it was - frankly, I'm glad I don't have that DVD, because I might have exploded...or imploded...but I rested instead, to get ready for day 4, which will be an hour of yoga tonight.
Wait, yoga? Yep, Yoga. Not this guy:
or this guy.....
but something more like THIS guy!
(No, seriously, this guy's pretty good - but I haven't bent that way since I was three years old))
At any rate, because this is P90X - just yoga isn't good enough. No, it's time for fast-paced, super-yoga-fighting-force-extreme-troopers-with-roid-rage-on-caffeine....yeah, that type of yoga. Which means one basic thing: Tomorrow, I will be in pain, I'm sure. Either that, or I am going to be the most relaxed person on the face of the earth, for I will have worked everything out of my system. I'm voting for the former of those options, if the past couple of days have been any indication.
Now, here's where it gets odd (I know, it's already too late...): I can't wait!!!!! Yes, it's tough, and yes, I have a hard time keeping up. Yes, it's only been a couple of days of pain and I already hate the S.O.B. in charge of these workouts. But I want more. Why?
Because- I cannot make an end of it until I am finished.
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Vacation
I was looking out today at the house across the street. I live on the side of a hill, on the uphill side of the street, so as I look out from my house, I can see the roofs of the houses on the other side. Confused yet? It’s Pittsburgh, we’re hilly, and everyone has their house built in either the valleys or on the sides of hills. Suffice it to say, the house across the street is a little further down the hill than my own. In particular, I was thinking about what it must be like to live in that house, where you would have to park your car uphill from the house on a parking pad, and then walk down towards the house itself. I was thinking of how odd it was, and how I’ve had to do something like that before.
I was taken back to a small corner of the Adirondack State Park in upper New York. There, in the heart of Lewis County, sits a small lake, and an even smaller town, called Brantingham. I don’t know how many people reside in the town, but the last time I was there, the town consisted of a volunteer fire department, a bar, an ice cream shack with mini golf attached, a post office, and a fish/game club. Yep. That’s downtown Brantingham. It’s the sort of place where you literally can miss it if you blink. Not far from this booming metropolis is a lake, which was the entire tax base for Lewis County, the last I knew about it. Brantingham Lake was where my family would rent a cabin for a week in the summertime. We spent that week swimming, fishing, playing cards, listening to music, sunning on the small beach, riding bikes, and playing horseshoes. There was no TV or phone, and the only radios were whatever we brought with us. Yep, it was, by modern terms, slow.
I remembered loading and unloading the car in particular. See, the cabin we rented was on a pretty steep slope, and we couldn’t park the car next to it. We had to park above the cabin and walk down to it, all out luggage in tow, about 60 feet. It really wasn’t that far of a walk, and it certainly wasn’t difficult. For the most part, it wasn’t even that much of a slope we had to traverse. That was when I thought of something I have not thought of in I can’t recall how many years: The Orange Cooler (insert over-dramatic music here). I know not how old this thing was, or from what year, but I’m guessing it was the brainchild of the late 1970s and a bad acid trip….on steroids. This was a simple molded styrofoam cooler, but it wasn’t like those cheap $1 items you can find today at any old convenience store. No, this was classy. This thing was a cube, to start. I don’t remember if it had handles molded into it or not – it might have. The top simply lifted off , but it was actually a tight fit to get it on in the first place. The color was – creamsicle. Yeah, I know, it sounds like my memory is shaky here, but I tell you, it seriously was the same color as a creamsicle. I think it was the ugliest hue of orange I’ve ever seen. Oh, and through years of use, it was also dirty. In fact, I cannot recall a time when that thing might have ever even resembled “clean” on the outside. The inside never saw light, so it was a brighter shade of orange and it was cleaner thn anything, since all it really ever had in it was some well-wrapped food and ice.
Oh, that cooler was with us for many a year, and many a trip to the lake. The lake where we had to park on the hill above the cabin. Like the neighbor’s house across the street from where I live today. Sometimes, I think I’d like to go back there, and see how the place has changed, but I know better. It hasn’t. It’s not the sort of place that changes – it’s the sort of place that changes you, stays with you, becomes a part of who you are, and comes rushing into your thoughts, unbidden but just as potent as before.
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
I was taken back to a small corner of the Adirondack State Park in upper New York. There, in the heart of Lewis County, sits a small lake, and an even smaller town, called Brantingham. I don’t know how many people reside in the town, but the last time I was there, the town consisted of a volunteer fire department, a bar, an ice cream shack with mini golf attached, a post office, and a fish/game club. Yep. That’s downtown Brantingham. It’s the sort of place where you literally can miss it if you blink. Not far from this booming metropolis is a lake, which was the entire tax base for Lewis County, the last I knew about it. Brantingham Lake was where my family would rent a cabin for a week in the summertime. We spent that week swimming, fishing, playing cards, listening to music, sunning on the small beach, riding bikes, and playing horseshoes. There was no TV or phone, and the only radios were whatever we brought with us. Yep, it was, by modern terms, slow.
I remembered loading and unloading the car in particular. See, the cabin we rented was on a pretty steep slope, and we couldn’t park the car next to it. We had to park above the cabin and walk down to it, all out luggage in tow, about 60 feet. It really wasn’t that far of a walk, and it certainly wasn’t difficult. For the most part, it wasn’t even that much of a slope we had to traverse. That was when I thought of something I have not thought of in I can’t recall how many years: The Orange Cooler (insert over-dramatic music here). I know not how old this thing was, or from what year, but I’m guessing it was the brainchild of the late 1970s and a bad acid trip….on steroids. This was a simple molded styrofoam cooler, but it wasn’t like those cheap $1 items you can find today at any old convenience store. No, this was classy. This thing was a cube, to start. I don’t remember if it had handles molded into it or not – it might have. The top simply lifted off , but it was actually a tight fit to get it on in the first place. The color was – creamsicle. Yeah, I know, it sounds like my memory is shaky here, but I tell you, it seriously was the same color as a creamsicle. I think it was the ugliest hue of orange I’ve ever seen. Oh, and through years of use, it was also dirty. In fact, I cannot recall a time when that thing might have ever even resembled “clean” on the outside. The inside never saw light, so it was a brighter shade of orange and it was cleaner thn anything, since all it really ever had in it was some well-wrapped food and ice.
Oh, that cooler was with us for many a year, and many a trip to the lake. The lake where we had to park on the hill above the cabin. Like the neighbor’s house across the street from where I live today. Sometimes, I think I’d like to go back there, and see how the place has changed, but I know better. It hasn’t. It’s not the sort of place that changes – it’s the sort of place that changes you, stays with you, becomes a part of who you are, and comes rushing into your thoughts, unbidden but just as potent as before.
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
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