"BEFORE" STUFF:
The other boys were off doing their thing with the Iron Pax Challenge a quarter mile away, but the more ambitious of us had already knocked that out earlier in the week, so we found other ways to punish ourselves for our misdeeds. As the old saying goes: "Punish your pax every week. If you don't know what they did wrong, don't worry—they do."
BRP had a couple of rare sightings for a Saturday morning, notably: Uncle Rico (aka the Master Bullshit Detector), and Titan (aka the Master Bullshitter*). They complemented BRPs two most regular denizens, Waffle House and YHC, along with semi-regular Boar Hog, with Hurley (no relation) in tow. Titan also brought along his adorable little daughter Sky, who, I'm happy to say, is a dog (no offense).
"DURING" STUFF:
The workout was called The Bloody Red Baron, after lyrics from the 1966 song by the Royal Guardians that apparently nobody ever heard of besides me, despite the fact that it hit #2 on the Hot 100 list. I was two years old at the time, so don't give me any of this "Before my time" crap. So were "Sweet Caroline" and "Shout" and you know those, don't you?
In the song, they count off: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more…, so we took that cue to the soccer field and did as many reps of every exercise, with a 200 yard run to the opposite corner of the field in between each set. A total of 150 reps per exercise with 1/8 mile run in between each of the 5 sets.
- Big Boy Merkins
- Deep Squats
- Raised-Leg Mason Twists
- Folding Card Tables
- Straight-Leg Raises
- Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stretches
By the end of the battle, 2.5 miles had been ticked offf (as well as some of the pax) and 750 rounds of ammunition (reps) had been fired from the machine guns of the assembled Fokkers (excuse the language), which ended the reign of terror of The Bloody Red Baron—at least until next time!
"AFTER" STUFF:
YHC took us out with a friendly admonition to be a force of cohesion—not division—in the challenging battleground of modern social interaction. We don't have to agree with everyone, but we don't have to vilify them, either. Just remember that everyone is doing the best they can with the information they have, so be patient, be kind, be compassionate. The alternative is to consider it your duty to make people wrong (like I used to do) and make yourself and everybody else miserable in the process.
Coffeeteria landed at Starbucks Cookout (or is it Starbucks Catawba?) where most of the BRP crew (sans Titan) met with some of the IPC boys for story time and bullshit (the good kind, Uncle Rico). The most notable incident was the woman who managed to wrangle a random group of strange, sweaty men (us) to babysit her kid in the car while she picked up her latte del mocha grande cappuccino with skim milk sweetened with privilege. I hope it was as delicious as the memory will always be for me.
* Just kidding. Titan's actually a horrible bullshitter.