President Me

I have decided to run for President! I am fully aware that no one has ever heard of me but I really want this job. The problem is, how do I go from a totally unknown to winning over the hearts of the majority of America? Hmmm, that’s going to take a lot of money. I personally have never really generated very much money but I have been watching and I think I have learned a few things. It’s not like I have to reinvent the wheel or anything. I can just pull the best tactics from all those who have gone before me.

 

First of all, I have to identify where the majority of voters are. I think the best starting place would be in our recent 99% movement. That’s who I want, not the 1%. I need the majority of people to vote for me. It’s really that simple. It seems the one thing that America has united on is that 99% of them don’t make enough money or think they don’t make enough money compared to the wealthy.. After all, if a person is making a few billion dollars, would they really miss just one million? Or even on a smaller scale, If a person is making a few hundred thousand dollars, would they really miss ten or twenty thousand dollars? After what I saw and read it looks like the 99% already thinks that the 1% that is ultra wealthy is the enemy. I can use that divisive tool to work for my campaign. All I have to do is continue pointing the finger at the 1% and talk about how bad they are and how I am going to stick it to them, and the 99% will have my back. I’ll be “on their side”. I will keep making that 1% look as if all their wealth came from greed and crooked underhanded deals. One thing I will never do is mention the hours of work and study that went into their careers or how long it took, sacrificing their time, energy and money to get there. I will make it look as if the 1% is the enemy and I will let my loyal 99% think that I am going after those cruel cash hoarders with everything I can muster. I will also make a promise to the 99% that I will never raise taxes on them as long as I am in office. Really, that is a pretty good start.

 

The problem is that I will need the money from the 1% to fund my campaign. I am going to have to be very creative here and use a bit of a slight of hand trick to make it work. To start with, I might just have to go outside the United States. I need to find the wealthiest people in the world and make a deal. I have to be careful in situations like this so as not to look like I am buying votes or doing the old “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of thing, but that has worked in the past and it should still work now. I also have so many special interest groups that I want to help out and I am sure that if I can get their support I will be able to pay them back, with interest. I can do that here but I will really need big money, both here and abroad and I will have to strike up some really good incentives. I believe the best way to veil this is to find out what the wealthiest people in the world are interested in. What do they invest in or what businesses do they want to start. It is with that approach that I think I can create a sweet scenario of support and payback.

 

To explain this to you (but please don’t tell anyone else my plan as it might not seem as above table as it needs to) think of something like…..an overseas million…billionaire that wants to invest in something like, I don’t know, corn farms in Brazil. With his promissory note of a few million dollars I could, in turn, promise to halt the production of corn in the United States, or cut off assistance to farmers or put a large tax on the export of our local corn, or really anything along those lines. This would mean the people who normally rely on us for corn would have to look elsewhere. I could then promise a couple of billion dollars of tax money (there will be no press coverage of this, of course) and send it to Brazil to fund the research and development to their corn crops in the name of global hunger or alternative fuel source creation, etc. Really, it could be anything but the possibilities would be endless. The return on their investment would be huge. I would have to get in on the action a little with some hidden stocks or something; I’m not stupid.

 

So with the millions to fund me I will have a platform. I will have a divisive tool by siding with the majority and pointing an angry finger at the minority. The irony is that American’s will not even stop to think that I have suddenly become one of the 1% myself. I have also, always heard that if you win the unions you win the election, so I will make sure that whatever taxes I do put out there, that anyone that belongs to a union will be exempt. That should bring a lot of votes and a few more donation dollars right here at home. The big scoop that I will have to keep a secret is that I will be doing what I call the “Double Blind Ghost Tax”. I love this and it is basically a way to tax people without them knowing it. They will never see it coming; they will never know that it is there. They won’t see it even when it is staring at them right in the face.

 

After building my campaign around taking money from the rich and giving it to others (I’ll never tell exactly what my special interest groups are but I think everyone will assume it is somehow going back to the 99%) I will then impose a string of heavy taxes on the wealthy. Americans will believe what they are told; they will believe me. Plus, I am a great speaker. The funny thing is that I will be taxing the business owners, the businesses themselves, the CEO’s, presidents, executives and all those movers and shakers that invest in the businesses. Suddenly these wealthy job creators will be missing millions of dollars from their business accounts and personal accounts because of the taxes and they will have to pay for being financially successful. Now that is a painful wound but here is the salt: those businesses can’t suddenly take a huge loss. What about their stocks that the average working person has their 401k invested in? How about their place on the stock market? None of them can afford to crash on Wall Street and all of them have a budget they have to meet for operating expenses, investments and retirement plans. The only option they will have is to either lay off workers (which will make them look even greedier and out of touch) or too slowly raise prices of goods and services.

 

Taxing those that produce is the same as taxing those who purchase. I call it “Trickle Down Taxation” and I have watched it work; it’s Finance 101. Just imagine companies like Heinz, Del Monte, Golden Flake, Betty Crocker having to raise prices just to meet budget and not show a dramatic loss that would scare away investors. Suddenly every bottle of ketchup, every can of beans, every bag of chips and every little snack cake would be a dime, a quarter, and seventy five cents higher. It would be gradual and could increase a little more every few months. No one would even remember the difference but they would notice that their fifty dollar cart of groceries now costs seventy five dollars. No one in America would ever stop and think this through. I would help to blur everything with the obvious rise in fuel costs probably being the culprit. I could always point the finger at the unrest in the Middle East. Let’s face it, if you have to import the corn to make the fuel, the price is going to be higher…right? Absolutely no one has the time to sit around and try to connect the dots. Just in case, I would make sure to pressure, through ad sales, the major television networks to back me up. They would have to write in characters and scenarios in every drama and situation comedy that made fun of anyone that might see through what I am doing. The shows would make them look like radicals or conspiracy theorist, etc. I will cover my tracks, yes indeed. The majority will love me and they will stay focused on the wealthy getting hit in the wallet and they will be happy that I am their President. They will not for one minute realize that they are paying higher prices and thus more taxes on absolutely every single item they purchase. I will be able to tax the wealthy and tax the entire working class; the money will be rolling in. My special interest groups will be making out like bandits and I will look like a hero.

 

I think I can do this whole running for President thing. I will have to have my foreign investors set my money aside for a while until my eight year reign ends and then I will be able to leave this country and live elsewhere like a king...and not have to pay all these taxes I created. I may be an unknown but I have learned from the best. All it is going to take is that first big investor who can recognize a good thing when he sees it. I’m off to Google the world’s wealthiest people and see what I can come up with. Wish me luck.

There Was Shrinkage!

You know that crackling sound that a fireplace makes when the wood is burning? I think maybe it is best when there are a few cedar logs in the mix. Did anyone by any chance hear that sound echoing across Murfreesboro yesterday? Well if you did, it was probably me..my vertebrae to be more specific. Yes, yes I went to Crossfit Rutherford again today and this time, the owner, my FORMER buddy, was teaching the class. How do I describe him….hmmm, he is like a really friendly Pit Bull and if he was a Transformer he would turn into some kind of bullet proof tank. I say that with love in my heart of course.

Yesterday's class was filled with one type of exercise. It involved a large bar (not Tiki) that we were to hoist up over our heads. I had to do my version of it and I think the owner called me the “Cleaning Jerk” while I was doing it….or something like that..maybe that was the name of the exercise; I dont' know. So while all the girls around me had their 25-45lb weights at each end of their bars, I had, well…I had the bar. We started with just getting the bar to our waist just to get a little technique in. I thought maybe that was the whole move at first as it was making me “feel the burn” but I soon learned it was just a warm-up.

We moved on to lifting the bar to our shoulders. I really felt that burn…still a warm-up. Next was the biggie, the whole enchilada, the reason we were all there. We were to take our weighted (or not) bar and in one clean move, hoist it up over our heads with our arms fully extended. We did one, then two in a row, then three, etc. until we couldn’t keep up and do anymore. Now somewhere in there is a little hop thing where your feet spread out as the bar flies over your head. Well, homie don’t hop or pick up heavy objects from off the floor so my ROM (that’s range of motion for you novices) was about half of what the others were doing. I know in that room full of competitive people that some of them had to be thinking, “Hey, Cleaning Jerk is cheating!” I felt like I needed to make some kind of announcement or something so they all wouldn’t just automatically hate me. They at least need to get to know me before they hate me…you know what I mean.

So there I was, feeling the burn, getting the stink-eye from a few people facing me and our bell rang and the “Dance of the Cleaning Jerk” began. The “one” wasn’t so bad; it got worse from there. Everyone was doing the hoist like they do in the Olympics with the little hop thing in the middle, holding their weighted bars over their heads and then slam, they would drop the bars to the floor after their reps. I did my half-granny-duck-squat version and let me tell you, it was all I could do. Apparently when the disks between your vertebrae have the thickness of Saran Wrap, you shouldn’t hoist heavy objects above your head. Thank goodness the music was loud, the grunts were in stereo and the crashing weighted bars made lots of noise. If there had been silence, everyone would have heard the snap crackle and pop of my spine and assumed the building was on fire. I would have been crushed, not emotionally, I mean physically crushed by muscular competitors running out the large garage door opening that I was blocking with my bar that I just couldn’t let go of because the floor was just too far away.

Soon it was over (for me), I got up to eleven and had to call it quits. When I got to my breaking point they told me “Ok, just go row 1000 meters and you are done!” While I was rowing it hit me that I needed to change my paperwork that I had filled out on day one. I had to list my next of kin in case of the pending emergency. I had my dad on there but I am going to replace “Charles Perry” with “Life Flight”.
All I can tell you is that when I left my heart was up in my frontal lobe but I felt so much better than I had all day. Of course, I have heard you can get a similar feeling of peace and calm right before death. I decided to stay positive.

As I was leaving, I noticed that my shirt was hanging down closer to my knees. At first I thought maybe it was from all the sweat but I am pretty sure it was the spinal compression. I know it was certainly harder to get into the car in the parking lot. I think I entered the building at 6’2” and left at 5’10”. I am almost positive about that. My pants were even longer. The stairs to get into my front door seemed so much higher and harder to climb; yes, I had definitely shrunk. Today I will go hang from something, either from my arms like a monkey or from my feet like a bat. I just can’t afford to take everything to the alterationist right now; also, my one month membership isn’t up yet. Who knows how tall I will be by the end of all this or if I’ll be needing anything more than a hospital gown? The sad part to all this is that I can't wait to go back. I hope the novelty of this wears off really soon. Dear Baby Jesus, please let the novelty of this wear off really soon; I cannot rock a hospital gown. Trust me on this one.

Hell's Portal and a Night of Firsts

I have long heard of people talking about loving Crossfit classes so when I saw a month of classes being offered at a silent auction, I nabbed it. It was a moment of temporary insanity. After a couple of weeks of feeling guilty about not cashing in on my winning bid, I decided that I had to at least give it a try.

I contacted the owner of Crossfit Rutherford to let him know and to tell him that I do have a few physical limitations. What I wanted to happen was for him to tell me that I would not be able to take the classes and that I could give them to someone else. He instead said, “No problem” and told me to come on to tonight’s class….great. I had a “red flag” right before class that should have cued me for a u-turn. I have heard that some of those classes do odd things like carrying concrete blocks, rope climbing, etc. I wanted a challenge but my goal in buying the classes was not to have the skin on my hands ripped off. I sent the owner another message asking if I would be needing to bring workout gloves. He responded with, “Only if they match your purse.” I am so glad that I didn’t lead with the hand sanitizer question.

On the way I stopped and OCD’d…I mean washed my car. Everything was in order; I was prepared. When I walked into the facility I noticed a distinct absence of a smoothie bar and there we no machines with padded seats…actually there were no seats at all…and no machines.  What kind of place was this? Couldn’t they afford any equipment? They didn’t even have carpet on the floors! The floors were concrete with some areas that had rubber mats. There were also no big screen TVs. How was I going to watch my afternoon shows while I worked out?

Fortunately, I saw an friendly face that I hadn’t seen in years. It was a realtor who had worked in my very first real estate office, Annette. It was sooooo good to see her. She was just back from being very ill and was not exactly sure if she was going to be able to make it. “Finally”, I thought, “someone to talk to while I workout.” Just as soon as we started to catch up with each other, the class leader, Todd came over and had me sign all the next-of-kin papers, in case I died in the middle of class. As it turns out, he was in my brothers very first elementary school class as a student and my brother was his teacher. There I was in a Crossfit class for the first time with the girl who worked at my first real estate office, in a class taught by my brother in his first year of teaching. It was a night of firsts. So, I signed my life away and boom, we started.

He explained what we were to do and to be honest it didn’t sound all that hard. I don’t know why it didn’t sound hard to me; I don’t do any of those exercises. I think I was in the denial phase of the night. I had to get on the one and only machine there, which was the rowing machine (how hard could that be?) and row for 400 meters. Next, I had to go over to what looked like low hung Olympic rings. I was to have my back on the floor, grasp the rings and raise myself up to the rings. It looked kind of like the way you would teach a granny to do pull ups. You only go a couple of feet off the floor and your feet stay on the ground. Piece of cake right? The next move was to do 20 push ups, going all the way to the ground and picking your hands up off the ground and then starting over. A split second rest between pushups sounded great to me. The only problem I had with it was that 20 was double my current “most pushups ever done at once” record. Last butt not least, was something that I thought I might just use to catch my breath. It was a box about two feet high. All I had to do was sit on it and get back up…20 times. I know that when I get up and down out of a chair that I use my arms to push me up and lower myself. I also know that I do 0 squats at the gym. Still, this was going to be a cake walk. He announced that we would be doing all this three times and that the entire thing would be timed….water off a duck’s back. I wasn’t sweating it at all.

We started and that rowing machine got me warmed up. It hit my legs and my shoulders. Going straight to the rings, I felt strong. I went over and got on the floor and grabbed the rings. I couldn’t believe how much effort it took to hoist myself up off the floor a couple of feet. Really gravity…could you not just cut me a little slack? To make matters worse, beside me was a beautiful college girl doing pull ups…real ones….20 of them. After a few rest periods in some white chalk dust, I finished and moved on to the push ups. There is something about picking your hands up when you hit the floor that flexes your back and makes it all just a little bit harder. Once again, 195 lbs couldn’t have felt heavier. Finally, I was off to my last chore and that was to go sit down and stand back up again. I was looking forward to the break. Funny (funny odd, not funny haha) when you are not using your arms to push yourself up from the seated position, you have to flex your leg muscles and your glutes. My lower half has nursing home muscle tone; I admit it. This little up/down routine pushed me to my limits. Nineteen, twenty, my legs were killing me and it I was done… and then it was time to start over again! Oy!

By round three, my Adam’s apple had been replaced with my heart; I could feel it. My face felt like it had a heat lamp on it and I was leaking water from head to toe. I was a human soaker hose. What was this new sensation and why didn’t I experience this at the gym every day while I workout and watch TV?

I made it thought the rowing machine but I couldn’t pick my feet up to get them out of the stirrups. I had to manually grab my feet and pick them up out of the foot holsters. I got over to the Olympic rings and all I can say is that cold concrete floor felt great. I wanted to put my face on it. I had to do my 20’s in four sets of five. “It’s all good” I told myself while doing my granny floor-pull-ups. I waddled over to the mat and did my push ups, also in small groupings and noticed that I was raining on the mat. Finally, I got to go over and do my final “sit on the box” workout and all I can say is that I felt the burn. I curse you Sir Isaac Newton…I curse you!

It was over! I made it without calling 911 and without throwing up. Those were my two main goals and I accomplished them both. I was a winner. I could feel, for the first time, every vein in my body throb in sync with my heartbeat. OMG. My friend, who had been sick for so long and who was weak, had been right at my heels the whole time. She’s a beast. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her the entire workout. Of course, if I had been given the chance, I wouldn’t have been able to speak anyway. I could almost not breathe. I had not felt like that in over 15 years. Not since my wreck had I pushed myself like that. I walked out and felt like someone had stuck a quarter in me somewhere; I was shaking all over. There wasn’t any part of me that could just be still. I can remember years ago, standing too close to the speakers at a nightclub and feeling my clothes and body shake; it was kind of like that but without the music and light show.

For the rest of the night I have just felt odd. I thought at first that something might be wrong with me but really, I think I am just relaxed. I have heard stories of endorphins but thought it was all a myth. Maybe that is what this is. I do know that rigor mortis is setting in…everywhere. Tonight I did have one lady tonight tell me that since she had been taking the classes her butt was two inches higher. That was actually a quote. I will say that I am pretty sure that when I get up in the morning, I will feel like I have had that procedure done. Of course, I am not sure that I want my backside to be two inches higher as I already have a very short waist. I wonder if there are any Crossface classes anywhere.

Yes, I have found the portal to hell and it is called Crossfit Rutherford. I am way to competitive to not go back, at least for my one month pass. It’s just that it is so….hard. Why do we do these things to ourselves? People pay for this? I know I will be paying for this tomorrow.  If I had never heard of it I would never have gone and would not be sitting here wondering who I am going to call to help get me up out of this chair. Why is that song, “If I only had a heart” running through my head and why do my feet feel like two microwave ovens on high? Oh my, tonight I might need sleep in a lift-chair, just in case...that would not be a first.