See Trash Run. See Trash Jump.

You know how sometimes in life you do or learn things that you think you'll never need to know in the future but then a situation comes along where the information or ability you learned was the best thing you could know. This is about one of those times.

In the 8th Grade I was on the track team. I know you're asking yourself how it's possible for a short fat guy to be on the track team. Well I wasn't always fat or short (Jen has beaten me down) and since I played football I was in pretty good shape. Not only that, but track is really known as track and field. So there are activities other than running such as shot-put and discus, which are the two things I excelled at. Not only can I pick up heavy shit, I can throw it too.

One of the many things I really hate is running. So when my coach told me I was required to run 2 miles before practice every day I tried to reason with him. I pointed out the fact that my 2 events did not require any running to compete. He just couldn't get it through his thick skull. So I had to resort to talking to my uncle (the principal). He pulled rank on the coach and I no longer had to run. The coach responded by making all the throwers, back ups for the running events. So now I had to run again. I went back to my uncle. Once again I no longer had to run. I would still be a back up but since I would never be used there was no sense in me running. I was an asshole all the way back in 8th grade.

We had a track meet one Saturday and I had already competed and taken first place for the shot-put and discus, so I was just hanging out watching some of the other events. So I'm sitting on the infield in the grass, leaning back enjoying a beautiful spring day minding my own business, when the coach steps in front of me.

Coach: "Trash."
Trash: "What coach?"
Coach: "You're up."
Trash: "Up for what?"
Coach: "High hurdles. Tim pulled a muscle."
Trash: "High hurdles? I've never jumped anything in my life."
Coach: "You will now, or make an ass of yourself."
Trash: "You would throw the event just to make me look bad?"
Coach: "Yep."
Trash: "OK. What do I do?"
Coach: "You run and when you get to the hurdle you jump over it."
Trash: "Just run and jump?"
Coach: "That's right."
Trash: "OK."

I was really pissed that this guy was trying to humiliate me. So I lined up at the starting line and when the gun went off so did I. I won the event and the coach hated me even more but I never had to run the hurdles again. Luckily the pole vaulters never got hurt. We were a small west Texas "B" school, so my abilities with the shot-put and discus never mattered, plus I moved to central Texas the next year and my football and track days were over. I started my training to become the thug y'all know and love (especially you, Zelda).

Fast forward 2 years. I'm hanging out with some of my miscreant friends and it's late at night. We were hanging out on somebody's porch, I don't think any of them lived there. So we were trespassing in the middle of the night and flinging rocks at cars as they drove by (see, I wasn't always a nice guy). Suddenly someone screams "Run it's the cops". Well we all did what comes natural at that point. We ran. Down the block, make a right, half way down and start jumping fences. I was in the lead the whole way. It's always been my belief that I don't have to be faster than the danger, I just have to be faster than whoever is with me. They have to be faster than the danger.

So I'm flying down the street and I make a left and hurdle the first fence. I know I was a surprised as y'all are. I figured what the hell, I did it once let's see if I can keep doing it. Now I'm hurdling fence after fence and my friends are slowing down to grab the fences and the cops are slowing down to drag their asses over the fences. I'm so far ahead of everybody it's ridiculous. I know this because I'm running and looking back and looking forward for the next fence. As soon as my feet touch the ground my head swivels to make sure I'm still getting away. I finally hit a yard with high weeds but it didn't slow me down any. My head turns to see if I'm still being chased. I see flashlights bobbing all over the place and I hear the police yelling "Stop". Yeah right. I turn my head to judge the next jump and WHAM. My head snaps back, my feet go up in the air, my body goes horizontal and I get dropped like a bad transmission.

I'm laying in the weeds trying to figure out what the hell just happened and I have a mouth full of blood. I was about to try to get up when all my friends ran past me with the cops hot on their heels. They all got caught in the next yard. I continued to lay still in the weeds with blood running out of my face and down my neck. My mouth hurt like hell, but I wasn't going to move or make a sound. They led my buddies out of the back yard through the side gate to the front of the house. Where they were all promptly escorted back to their parents. I didn't have any fear of them ratting on me, because that shit didn't fly back then.

I laid there a little while longer to make sure everybody was gone and stood up, at which point I hit my head on the clothes line that had taken me down in the first place. My mouth was cut up, my teeth hurt and I was covered in dry blood. My body ached all over from the beating I took when I slammed into the ground. All I had to do was make it home without being spotted by the police. I figured if I was caught I would say I was jumped by a bunch of thugs that were sitting on some dudes porch. My friends all got community service and I got the inside of my mouth turned into hamburger meat. To this day I wonder who got the better deal. I just know my fence jumping days are over. From now on I'm going to stand still and try to get tazered. That's where the real money is.

Keep on keeping on.