Woody Cavenaugh

Why the first event inspired the second I have no idea. Just nod and smile, I have no other other advice for you.

It all started with a police car pulling a driver on Market Street down town just before six pm yesterday. It was clear from the pulled car that they came from one of the center lanes. You could plainly see that from the sharp angle the car went into the parallel parking space at the side of the road. The effect was that the lane was blocked by the patrol car which parked in such a way as to protect other motorist from the back corner of the offending vehicle. People get pulled all the time, and I suspect down town even more often. Realistically I shouldn't have given it a second glance, but there was just that something extra involved that turned a mundane event into a photo opportunity. (And me without a camera.)

The pulled vehicle was a drivers education car, complete with the roof sign! I am sure that the reason the car was pulled was mundane, but I can't help but let my imagination go wild.
"Yes, this will effect your final grade".
"There is still time to drop the class without penalty."
"Move over, and take the wrap for this and I will pass you, my orange is spiked with vodka and I can't get another DUI."

The last one was from experience. Back in highschool one of the drivers education teachers daily ate a spiked orange in the car. The students knew it because the smell of vodka wasn't really disguised by the orange itself. In hindsight, I have to say I sympathize with the man, and hey, its not like he was driving himself. He sure didn't ever share his oranges.

Anyway, I'm having a good laugh over seeing the driver's education car pulled over and thusly arrived in fencing in an even brighter mood than normal I was still basking in the afterglow of a really successful tournament and great press coverage. There is only one thing to do!

When I stopped fencing at UNCG some years ago, I fitted into all of my gear. The couple of years I took off from fencing wasn't that good for my clothing. It all shrunk in the closet to the point that I couldn't wear it any more. To teach I had to buy a new jacket, which for some reason ended up many sizes larger than my old one. I can only assume that the first jacket I bought was sized American and this new one is sized foreign or something. At any rate, by some coincidence I am now also extremely close to my phase one deliverable of 300 pounds.

It was time to keep my hopes down, and put my money where my ass was. I grabbed my knickers off of the shelf where I had put them as "loaners" since I couldn't wear them anymore and walked into the locker room for a harsh dose of reality. That will teach my euphoria a thing or two!

Five minutes later I walked back into the gym dressed in regulation equipment totally legal for competition. Reality had been turned on its ear, and sent to its room crying without dinner.

An hour of intense footwork, and bladework drills later I sat down, popped the mask and gazed at myself in the mirror across the room. "That's odd", I thought. I could see the white uniform from the white shoes to the white socks, to the white (well fitting) knickers, to the white jacket, where my face ought to have been was a blur, it was like I had suddenly developed chameleon powers or something. At either rate appart from the hair and the whites of my eyes, my face was completely undistinguishable from the brick wall I was sitting against. Apparently this new surreal reality (surreality?) was trying to tell me that I was done for the evening.

Either way, it seemed like a good idea and I went with it.