The Breakfast of Champions

Tues: 2 hr endurance ride with transition 4 miles
Wed: AM-10 miles easy
PM-2 miles easy

Nothing interesting to report on the training front, have felt like crap for a couple days now. That is awesome, I guess, because it means the training load was sufficiently hard. On Tuesday I was able to ride with the dad again, for the last time before I go back to Columbia on Saturday. He did great, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, as I was riding behind the wild fro'd old guy I thought of a story that must be told to understand him.

My dad is a man who likes his coffee...not black like a real tough guy but sweet and creamy. It's kind of like going up to a bar wearing a holster and cowboy boots only to order a Sex on the Beach or Appletini (it's delicious, I know). So he often comes downstairs in a sleepy comatose state and pours some black gold, only to smother it in taste accessories. Usually he picks up the coffee to smother it in Splenda and soy creamer until it tastes like a hot Slurpee. One morning a few years ago,though, he gets downstairs and there is NO SUGAR! OH NOES! Luckily, a bag reveals itself and he goes through the routine until it's where he likes it, nukes it in the microwave, and takes a sip. "Daggumit!" he thinks, "Forgot to put that there Splendar in." So he scoops out some more (the baking type that looks like a pile of sugar). Another microwave so the coffee is appropriately radioactive, and he tries again. "Gosh golly gee," he says with disgust, "that coffee isn't the bees knees like usual." (he went from southern hick to 50s kid in a sentence...who knows why). You would think something would click at this point, but nope, he goes through the process one last time. "Sheeeit," he curses, "homie just gon' drank now." (he's a rapper all of a sudden) The cup is downed, followed by another, and possibly another. At this point, the great scholars in history would be perplexed as to why he continued to pour cups of something that was not sweet at all--did he think his taste buds were off? Then, it begins. I hear a rumbling off in the distance. Is it thunder? Oh, it's clear outside. Ummm, is it a bomb test? Oh, we don't live on Bikini Atoll. I scamper into the kitchen to investigate, and he is on the toilet with ungodly sounds emanating from his porcelain lair. This goes on for the rest of the morning, into the afternoon. He still has not put two and two together; in fact, he sips more coffee to settle his stomach.

Later in the day I go to have some tea. My dad sounds like he is doing power cleans somewhere in the bathroom area. I feel sorry for him; the stomach flu sucks and it may even be necessary to go to the hospital to get an IV. Doctor House would be powerless with my dad's terrible sickness. Oh well, always time for tea before I take him to the hospital. After a three minute steep, I go to put in a teaspoon of sugar..."Hey dad, WHY IS THERE EPSOM SALT WHERE THE SUGAR SHOULD BE?"

Epsom salt, the most powerful and quick-acting natural laxative, was his sugar that day. When each cup was not sweet enough, HE PUT MORE SALT IN, in quantities large enough to loosen the stool of a constipated T-Rex. Worst of all, it said EPSOM SALT on the package. So that's my dad. I'm consistently suprised he doesn't eat cat food mixed with mayo thinking its tuna. But that's another story...