Ain’t What They Used To Be

We were all sitting around the campfire on my church grounds when it happened. This particular evening was prime for a gathering such as this. One of those fall days where it’s not quite cool enough for a heavy coat and the heat from the fire is sufficiently warm. A Michigander’s paradise. It came on suddenly, while I was mid-strum on the Ibanez I was now clutching with the same intensity I was using to will the contents of my bowels to remain where they were. I could feel everything rapidly dropping into my lower intestine. The taco bell I had prior had decided to aggressively protest proper digestion, now racing for the nearest exit. Given what taco bell does to most people, anyone might say that I should’ve seen this coming. The reason I didn’t is that for as long as I’ve existed, I have been able to devour anything edible without so much as a hint of adverse reaction. I was notorious for having a steel gullet and would sometimes joke that my digestive tract could compete with any of the world’s major scavengers. That was, until now. I’ve pulled more than my share of knives from my backside after many failed relationships with ex boyfriends and ex friends, but no betrayal had ever struck me such as the one that was just administered by my own body. Something I thought I knew as well as my own soul. I jumped to my feet, sprinting to the porter jon that was clear across the grounds, exposing a secret I had managed to keep since I retired from cross country in the Fall of my senior year of high school. Thankfully, I was able to salvage my pants but I made my way back to the fire slowly, trying to delay the inevitable. The laughter was still going strong when I got back. Not because it was obvious to everyone that I had nearly shat my pants but because everyone just discovered how ridiculously stupid I look while going at a full sprint. Something I hadn’t been heckled for since my last cross race. See, a cross country race is 3.1 miles in distance. The last ‘point one,’ is when you’d use your body’s last stores of energy by unleashing the most speed you could muster after cranking out three miles. While I was well built for pacing myself through long distances, I was not cut out for sprinting and it showed at the end of every race. My coach would joke about how I would become unglued as I lost control of my flailing appendages in pursuit of that finish line. Something I was relieved to bid farewell when I finished my running career, and something I would not have anticipated to be the subject of more jests and laughter after over a decade of silent retirement. Man, I’m never going to live this down.