Redneck In Training

Imagine the scene. It's mid-February. I'm in the middle of some weight-bearing exercise when G. the Meanie asks what I've got in store for the weekend.

"I'm going up to Mom and Dad's house. Only big plan right now is to watch the Daytona 500."

"You like NASCAR?" This was asked with the same expression and inflection of someone asking, "You like rotten bananas/eating raw onions/the smell of farts?" He was slightly incredulous and perhaps a wee bit unpleasantly surprised that someone as cool as I obviously am could enjoy such a redneck sport as NASCAR.

"Yeah, I do."

"Why?"

I launched into the short-but-sweet version of my usual spiel: I like the loud, fast cars, the drama and intensity, the hot tempers, and, well, yeah...the hot drivers. I explained how fuel strategy alone can make or break a good run, and how I lost some interest last season because my driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., had such crap luck all season.

"You're the only friend I know who likes NASCAR."

At this, I probably just laughed and made some comment about having superior tastes.

At our next appointment, G. brought up something about the Daytona 500. Turns out, he'd actually tuned into part of it. "Now that football is over, I need a sport to watch on Sunday afternoon."

He tuned in the next weekend, too, and the weekend after that. Now, on Mondays, I can bring up, "Did you see that wreck/charge for the win/streaker in the infield?" and he'll always have a reply. He's already doing the whole, "Jimmie Johnson won AGAIN?" thing, though I suspect he's slightly impressed, rather than mildly horrified like I am.

The clincher came yesterday. I was cleaning a cat cage at PetCo when I heard the familiar "doodle-ee-doodle-ee-doo" indicating an incoming text message on my cell phone. I figured it was probably Summer, but when I got a moment to check, I saw it was from G. the Meanie-turned-NASCAR-fan:

"No NASCAR today?"

Of course, it's impossible to tell from a short text just how disappointed he might be about this, but as I stood there in front of three disdainful foster cats, laughing, I thought, I've created a monster.

To be fair, as Mom pointed out, he's created a monster, too. A treadmill-running, mountain-hiking, healthy-eating, weight-lifting, total gymbo of a monster.