So I spent a lot of time working for my parents when I was a kid. We traveled out of town a lot in the summers, and I spent a lot of time with guys that were older than I was. It was a good time, and we did stupid things. I've decided to tell some of these stories because they are hilarious. You may not believe me, but this stuff actually happened. I have changed all of the names in these stories to protect the identities of the people involved.
A little background on this story. We were working outside of Kingman, Arizona in the middle of summer. To say it was hot would be the worst understatement in the history of mankind. We went to work at 4 A.M. to try to stay out of the heat, and it was 95 degrees when we walked out the door.
Our two main characters in this story, we'll call them Doug and Murphy, were working out in that sweltering heat all day. Murphy was a tall red headed guy in his mid twenties, who was freakishly strong. He never played any sports to my knowledge, but he was one of those naturally gifted athletes. Doug, on the other hand, was the stud athlete on the football team. He was probably 17 at the time, and he wanted to be the alpha dog. So of course the rest of us always poked at him a little bit, especially about Murphy and his athletic ability.
Doug couldn't take the fact that there was someone there that might just be a bigger badass than he was. The rest of us constantly reinforced the fact that he may or may not be the best athlete on the job. Murphy couldn't have cared less.
At some point, I'm not sure exactly when, Doug decided to start trying to push Murphy into some kind of physical contest. You know, lift heavy things, run fast, etc.... Murphy wasn't interested and let Doug know that in no uncertain terms. Doug, god bless him, wouldn't take the hint. So the razzing by the rest of us only got worse. I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of fun. Kind of like poking a bear and waiting to see what happened.
Eventually it came to a head. We were sitting on the tailgate of the truck having a drink out of the cooler when Murphy finally snapped. We had just finished walking to the top of a decent sized hill and coming back down to the truck. Doug had not stopping talking smack the entire way. So Murphy challenged Doug to a foot race. Starting at the truck and running to the top of the same hill we just climbed and back to the truck.
Oh you should have seen the joy on Dougs face. He was finally going to prove he was the man. I remember thinking that they were crazy. It had to be 115 degrees at that time and we had just drank a whole bunch of liquids. I mean, you talk about a recipe for disaster. But by god it was happening, and I think by that point we were all glad it was finally going to be over. The fun we had been having poking at Doug had turned into all of us being annoyed that he wouldn't let it go.
So the foot race was on. Murphy laid out the short rule list. First to the top of the hill won the race. Now that it was on, Murphy started taking smack to Doug, which was weird considering that for weeks Murphy didn't want anything to do with it. The more Murphy talked, the more Doug got wound up and the more his chest stuck out.
My job is to give the 3, 2, 1, Go to start the race. Murphy and Doug lined up next to each other, Doug giving Murphy the stare down. I count down and yell go.
Doug takes off at a dead sprint, as fast as he can run through the brush and cactus. Murphy took one fast step forward.....turned around, walked back to the truck, and sat down on the tailgate. Where all of us promptly started laughing our asses off. Unfortunately for Doug, he never looked back to see what was going on. Even when he threw up half way up the hill. When he got to the top, he turned around and realized what had happened. I thought I could see his dismayed, pissed off face, but he was a long way away. I can tell you that I could hear him cursing up there, in between the dry heaves he had.
I never knew what a walk of shame looked like until that moment.
When he got back to the truck, Doug was still Doug. He was still going to try to be the Alpha dog. But he was going to let Murphy be in his own pack.
