I Hate You, Imitative Cyclist

Everyone single person you know (unless you play grab ass with pornstars on the reg)  wishes they were someone different. Your mailman wishes he was Neo from "The Matrix." Your kid's teacher, the one who plays the flute, he wishes he was a woman. Your girlfriend wishes she was single because you won't stop coming home drunk and passing out naked on the bathroom floor even though her parents are coming the next day. Your barber wishes he was motherfucking LeBron James, son, because he has mad ups and can get rim if he gets a good running start. Hell, even I pretend that I'm not a white-collar slob, and envision myself thwarting a would-be terrorist on the 2 train with a swift uppercut to Ahkmed's half-beard, then graciously accepting lavish gifts from the mayor, and then maybe becoming the focal point of a Nike ad campaign, and then somehow landing a role in whatever war mini-series Tom Hanks has in the works, because they are fucking awesome and I would be perfect for the cool albeit slightly disturbed gunnery sergeant, and then...

You see what happened there? It's just so easy imagining yourself as a totally different person. Can you honestly watch "Good Will Hunting" and not think, Fuck, I wish I was super-smart. I would do the same shit as Matt Damon except I would NOT move to fucking California for man-jaw Minnie Driver. She sucks. But thankfully most people are smart enough to not act on impulse. Of course we all want to be universally renowned and travel to exotic places and give sick lectures on how your job/talent is amazing and worthy of envy and adoration. Of course we want bundles of expendable cash to light our cigars with and use to make cool decorations. Why yes, I did use shredded $1,000 bills as the hay for the Nativity Scene. Anyone who says they don't want these things is either a liar or an agoraphobic or a fucking lying agoraphobic. Everyone wants to be special in some way. But the sad reality is, most likely, you are mediocre, or a short step above the average. You will not leave a footprint on society. When you're gone, the only thing you'll leave behind is debt. Depressed yet? BECAUSE I SURE AM.

/clutches knees to chest
/sobs in a bathroom stall

But honestly, I respect people who go out into this cold, cruel world each day, do their job, and then come home to complain about dinner, take 47 Advil's for their back, spill beer on the couch and rub it in with their shirt, and then yell at the TV because A.J. Burnett is a poor excuse for a human-being and has his head up his ass and has yet again decided to take the night off. And I respect these people because this is called LIFE, and they deal with it accordingly. What I don't respect is people who painfully and depressingly try and be something they are obviously not. Like people riding ten-speed bicycles decked out in neon spandex with racing numbers and fake advertising on their shirts. Give me a fucking break. Who do you think you are, Lance Armstrong? Did you remove one of your testicles with a pen knife? Because if you're that dedicated than maybe I will show you a little respect. But most likely you're just another shithead who rides around with a little gang of other middle-aged nerd cyclists, wearing Oakley's and $700 helmets. And you especially suck at life because you ride around on back roads with blind turns, almost causing head-on collisions because you will not move over to the fucking shoulder. This act alone should be grounds for public stoning carried out by weak-armed diabetic children.

I can't stand people who ride their bike and pretend the street is their own little Yellow Brick Road. It's just another way to say, "Hey, rest-of-the-world, fuck you, what I'm doing is more important than what you're doing. LOOK AT MY EXPENSIVE WATCH AND SHINY BICYCLE." People who think every ride-around-the-block is the Tour de France should be mowed down by a flat-bed truck at least once, just to see if they really want to cross paths with a deranged motorist. Oh, you have a bell to notify me of your presence? Well, let's see how that bell of yours works when I lob this branch into the spokes of your tire, dickhead.

The fact that these people get angry when they feel threatened by traffic - real car traffic - is a bigger oxymoron than Perez Hilton giving tips on how to remove a tree stump from your garden with a pick-axe. You are on a bicycle, riding in rush hour traffic when everyone - if given a loaded pistol - would shoot every other motherfucker in the face for making a halfhearted attempt to cut them off . If you want to ride your little bicycle around, then you better be ready to deal with cars zooming past you at 670 mph, wheels manned by stressed-out lunatics looking for a reason to run someone over and spend the rest of their life in white collar prison not paying bills and eating grilled cheese without their wife telling them to, "slow down and chew."

And most of these cyclists must be going straight from their bike ride to a stall where they ingest vats of unstrained lard, because they are certainly not icons of physical fitness. I do not want to see the crack of your ass. I do not want to see your pale, hairy ass. I do not want to see the outline of your balls through your spandex. I do not want to see your fucking fat rolls jiggling as I move past you. Who let you leave the house like that? My wife makes me change my shirt if there is even a HINT of a stain on it, I couldn't imagine if I tried to leave looking like a fucking scuba diver on his way to a gay pride parade.

Enough already. Put on mesh shorts and a t-shirt. You do not need to be aerodynamic. You are fat, which cancels out the need to be aerodynamic, anyway. You look like an asshole. Your kids are ashamed of you and everyone hates you. Are you happy now? Are you happy that you fulfilled your fantasy of being a professional cyclist?

Oh you are?

Well...Then let me know how my car bumper tastes, because I imagine it tastes like STEEL.