A Retrospective Perspective

When I got all worked up over the weekend about communism it reminded me of this guy I used to work with. The first day I met him he pulled me aside and in a hushed voice explained to me that everyone with facial hair was a communist. He was dead serious. His name was Dick. Really, Dick. He was a retired Army Colonel, and he had little matrices to help him decide everything in life. You know, if A then B – that kind of stuff. I imagine somewhere on his matrix it said ‘If facial hair, then communist’. I have never wanted to grow facial hair so bad in my life. Not that I was a communist, I just didn’t like Dick.

When I worked at that job with Dick, I met another guy. His name was Richard Payne Ph.D.. When he gave me his card I really tried not to laugh. I really did. Karma really bit me in the ass a few years later when I met the real Dr. Dick Pain. His name wasn’t Payne though. It was Williams. And he was a urologist, not a Ph.D.. Seems that laughing about the other guy gave me a kidney stone, and a new perspective on pain. Talk about OMG! Karma is a bitch. Just when you think you are safe – BOOM!

Anyway, Richard Payne was trying to save the world with statistics. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but what Richard didn’t realize is that ignorance trumps statistics every time. Every time. The real challenge in science isn’t new discoveries or figuring out how things work. It is overcoming things that we know are true, even if they aren’t.

Here are some things I figured out that are true over the weekend…

• It takes about a mile or two of riding a bike in the rain for your butt to get really wet.
• It takes about 15 miles of riding a bike in the rain for the water to start sloshing in your cycling shoes.
• Riding a bike behind someone else riding a bike in the rain makes it hard to see.
• Rain water coming off the road doesn’t taste very good.
• Rain water coming off the road can deposit sand in your ears. Amongst other places.
• Riding bikes with other people in the rain makes it hard to stop and pick stuff up. Damn it.
• You can get almost as wet from perspiring inside a rain prophylactic as you would from the rain without it.
• Some people will call you ‘rubber boy’ if you wear a rain prophylactic.
• Weathermen are like Congressmen. Most of the time they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. With either you are better off going outside and taking a look around.

Happy pandemic everybody.