Years ago, when I first lived in Victoria, an acquaintance updated his Facebook status to something like, “Come and see me wear a beard of bees in front of the Legislative this Saturday at noon!”

Obviously a joke, except a few days later, he updated his Facebook profile photo. The new picture was of him in front of the Legislative with the promised bee beard. This is probably why our friendship never took off: I had missed out on a life-altering event of his. He could never forgive me.

Of course, there hasn’t been that kind of stuff happening this year. Instead, we have to stay home and watch whatever our streaming services provide us. Netflix just released a docuseries, “We are the Champions” to remind us of when people used to have fun.

Cheese rolling.

Yann accused this of being something I would be into. He is devastatingly wrong. I hate getting injured, and I can’t think of a more promising opportunity for injury than cheese rolling. The last time I fucked myself up, I couldn’t work or ride a bike for two weeks or climb for a month. I can deal with the pain, but the boredom is intolerable.

On the note of Yann being wrong about me, he apologized for buying a full-sized hairdryer to replace the travel-sized one of mine that he broke.

“I don’t care,” I told him.

The new one is hot pink and has a retractable cord that’s already whipped me in the arm. It’s punk.

“Yea, but what if you want to travel with it?”

“Do you think… I am a person who goes travelling with a hairdryer?”

Anyway, it was a gift. I usually let my hair air-dry for three hours instead of blow drying it. I call it paleo hair styling.

The second episode of the docuseries featured a chili pepper eating contest. I could probably chomp down a jalapeño, but I wouldn’t go any further for a cash prize of $1,000. I’m not enough of a masochist.

So, I googled for more unique competitions to determine which ones I’d have a shot at winning.

Continue reading “Competitive showboating.” →