Remember the episode of the Simpsons where Homer wants to buy a gun but is told there’s a five-day waiting period? (His response: Five days? But I’m mad now!) Anyhow, that’s the same episode where he mutters an extended period of time…

Homer: (walking out of store to his car) Lousy big shot, thinks he’s so big ’cause he’s got a lot of guns, if he didn’t have any guns I’d show him a thing or two… (at home, pacing the hallway in front of Lisa’s bedroom) …let’s see him walk into my store and then we’ll see who’s worried about five-day waiting periods…
Lisa: Dad…it’s three A.M! Can’t you mutter in your room?
Homer: Marge kicked me out.
Lisa: (groans) All right. Go ahead.
Homer: Pushy kids think they can tell me what to do in my house, Why, I tell you these parents these days they don’t know how to rear children…

Getting my race # for the Nautica Triathlon tomorrow was a similar affair. Finding out I’m in wave 32 of 34, (meaning I have to get to the race at 5am, only to sit on my ass until 8:30am) produced a similar effect.

Today found me checking in my bike early for the start and seeing that I’m close to, I dunno… like, eight miles away from the entrance. So the rest of my day has been something like this…

"Stupid Triathlon and the end of the wave start and I start near the very end and it’s gonna take forever and I’m not an elite triathlete and I’m not old because if I were old or elite I’d get to start at the front and now I have to bring the NY Times crossword with me and sit in the sun for three hours and do nothing until I jump into the stupid Hudson River because it’s gonna take forever and the elite athletes are gonna be home already before I even start and I feel so slow and this is so stupid and I’m fat and I ran a four-miler this morning and it was ok but I’m 40 seconds per mile off my PR for a 4-miler and I need to get faster and look at my fat-ass cat sitting there asleep and see if HE could run a 4-miler stupid cat and I want pasta and…"

Wish me luck. Come down and look for me. I’ll be the muttering one.

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