Left No Skin in the Dirty South

Went back to Sweet Home this weekend for a little bike racing-- Anniston, AL. However, if you're from L.A., the unabridged name for a Northern city like Anniston might be "liberal, momma-hating Yankees." But it's all a matter of context, right?

So Anniston has turned into quite a nice race. We had 80 starters and $50 and $100 primes were falling like rain which kept the race pretty fast the entire night. After a horrible start I wormed my way up to the top 15-25 folks and stayed there all night. I was hoping to sit in and wait for the legs to start feeling good; however, they never did.

We raced the entire night with ZERO crashes, which was not a good thing because it meant the remaining folks left at the sprint were gonna be maniacs-- and they did not disappoint. I spent the few remaining laps taking digs to move myself up closer to the front. That was working out great until one lap to go. Coming into the finishing stretch, I took a turn hard inside and accelerated like crazy. And that's when the chaos started. Dude next to me clipped a pedal and nearly found the barricades. Another guy beside me blew a tire. I'm still accelerating when the dude in front of me manages to violently throw himself to the pavement. I need time to sort these things out so I grab a handful of brakes until I can see which direction he's gonna slide. He slides left, I go right but slowing down to nothing takes me completely out of the race. I pass his carcass and see someone flipping in my rear view. Take a deep breath, finish the race and just be thankful to have not lost a pound of flesh in the finish that seemed to resemble the opening 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan."

However, we find out a few minutes later that the guy flipping behind me was a teammate and he's been carted off to the hospital. 3 hours later, all comes back negative-- he just feels like a truck hit him. He split for some sh1tty Mexican food which settles quite well (not) at 10.30 in da P.M.

Sunday morning. My bud Brian and I loading up my car and getting ready to murder the Hampton Inn breakfast when this skank walks by my car:
Skank-- Y'all going to breakfast.
Me-- Uh....
Brian-- Yeah.

Skank-- What's your name?
Me-- Uh....
Brian-- Brian. What's yours?

Answers in 3...2...1

Skank-- Jessica.

First red flag. For someone to initiate a conversation then take 3 seconds to answer the question "what's your name?" is a little suspicious. Also, I noticed the name tattooed on the back of her neck was only 5 letters-- too short to be a "Jessica." Unless, of course, the tat read "BITCH" or "WHORE".

I fondly referred to her as our meth-head stripper, but my friend Clark said the appropriate name is "lot lizard." Apparently, she's of the ilk of prostitutes that trolls truck stops looking for action from the truckers. Not sure that my Japanese-made Pathfinder qualifies Brian or me as "truckers" but maybe she's into that.

We planned on riding Cheaha... here's the language lesson for everyone because I'm tired of them butchering the name. Cheaha-- it's 2 syllables and sounds like Chee-ha. Not Chee-haw or Chee-uh-ha. Anywho, we skipped that ride because of bad rain all day in Anniston/Piedmont. Instead, we jetted back to Memphis and enjoyed a few hours of riding in the sunshine.