Are We Too Competitive?

Written by Gina Schreck


Are we too competitive?

Are you a little competitive? Would you consider yourself a RAGING MANIAC when it comes to a good competition? Welcome to Competitors Anonymous.

You are competitive if you compete as you drive onrepparttar freeway--you know, you pick a car in front of you and pretend it isrepparttar 118182 Indy 500. You are competitive if you believe thatrepparttar 118183 rule in driving is simply to catch up torepparttar 118184 car in front of you!

You know you are a raging maniac when you find yourself trying to take down your eight-year old in a game of GUESSTURES. We have family game night at my house once a week and my husband has actually banned me from playing for a month because of what he called, EXCESSIVE CELEBRATION.

Okay so maybe I shouldn't have pushed her so hard when my team gotrepparttar 118185 word, "HUDDLE!" I get a little out of control when I play games. But it's all in fun, right?

They say men are typically more competitive than women, but I think we just compete differently.

Last weekend I entered a Tae Kwon Do sparring competition--well, a friend of mine had signed up and when she became ill, she asked if I would take her spot so she wouldn't loserepparttar 118186 registration money. What's a friend to do? I couldn't see her lose forty dollars!

I thought, “How hard could this be?” I had been taking lessons for a couple years and enjoyedrepparttar 118187 exercise inrepparttar 118188 sparring matches. It would be fun!

WELL...no one told me that they are out for blood in these competitions!

As I sat stretching before my match I watched this young “man boy,” maybe eighteen or twenty, throwing punches and kicking to warm up and he looked MAD! He looked over to his opponent and said under his breath, "Prepare to die!"

DIE? What was he talking like this for...it's just a friendly game right? Wasn't this all about exercise and FUN? I wanted to go out there and spank him or at least put him in time out for poor sportsmanship, but thought they might throw me out.

I leaned over to a woman sitting next to me and whispered, "Who is he? Inigo Montoya fromrepparttar 118189 Princess Bride? Here to avenge his father's death? My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father. Prepare to die!" She started laughing and said she loved that movie. We were likerepparttar 118190 old Siskel and Ebert duo. Chatting about movies.

I was inrepparttar 118191 middle of telling her that I had watched The Princess Bride at least 50 times, when all of a sudden, my coach pulled me back and said, "She is not your friend! She isrepparttar 118192 enemy! That is who you will be fighting in a few minutes!"

Peggie

Written by Robert Levin


During my twenties and thirties it was my goal to have sex with every physical type of woman onrepparttar planet.

I’d prefer not to hear any stuff about this. I was proceeding fromrepparttar 118181 belief that by sleeping with a representative of every kind of female body, and every category of appearance I would, in effect, come to know all women and that such an accomplishment would be good for my writing.

Okay?

Of course, even to gather only samples from what, you realize when you get into it, is a vast assortment of sizes, shapes and physiognomies, would have meant putting up numbers comparable to Wilt Chamberlain’s. And being all of five-foot-six, more skinny than slim—and with a nose you would think must obstruct my vision—I’d obviously set my bar too high. But spurred byrepparttar 118182 promise ofrepparttar 118183 literary rewards that even limited success would yield, I determinedly pursued my objective, and had it not been for a prostate glandrepparttar 118184 Harvard School of Medicine will surely make a bid for upon my demise, I’d probably have been at it much longer.

Middle-aged now and long out ofrepparttar 118185 hunt, I’m forced to concede that my writing would have been better served by writing more and researching less. Still,repparttar 118186 time spent on my project wasn’t entirely wasted. Collateral though it may be, I did reap one unanticipated and very practical benefit. While my collection of memories isn’t as comprehensive as I’d have wished (variations onrepparttar 118187 theme of plainness are more than adequately represented but girls who look like Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Connelly are glaringly missing),repparttar 118188 mental snapshots I've kept ofrepparttar 118189 women I WAS able to cop have been more than sufficient in their quantity and variety to save merepparttar 118190 price of a subscription to “Jugs.”

And, indeed, I have been left with a story or two to tell.

Not least forrepparttar 118191 adventure it amounted to, a hookup I think of a lot was with a twenty-something woman named Peggie who’d just days before—and forrepparttar 118192 first time—come to New York fromrepparttar 118193 Midwest on a month-long vacation.

We met in a bar. I was standing alone, casingrepparttar 118194 action, when I heard, right behind me,repparttar 118195 sound of a sharp quick fart—like a wooden match striking. Turning to look I confronted a sight onlyrepparttar 118196 word “humongous” could accurately depict—a female at least a foot taller than I was and approximatelyrepparttar 118197 width ofrepparttar 118198 Great Wall of China.

She was smiling flirtatiously at me and, though taken aback by her appearance (not to mention her method of getting my attention) and reflexively recoiling, I quickly recovered when I realizedrepparttar 118199 opportunity she was presenting me with. Here was my chance to cross gross obesity fromrepparttar 118200 list of body types I hadn’t yet scored.

In a brief conversation—during which it occurred to me that she’d be almost agreeable-looking if she just lost 300 pounds—Peggie told me she was a cashier at a Kalamazoo, Michigan supermarket (a career chosen, she readily admitted, forrepparttar 118201 substantial food discount it offered); that she had once played a Packard convertible in a high school production of “Grease,” and that her parents had tragically expired in a suicide pact just weeks after her birth.

Then she invited me to her hotel room.

(As we were leaving, I sawrepparttar 118202 bartender, who could not, of course, have understood my agenda, shaking his head in disbelief.

“That’s it,” he nudgedrepparttar 118203 customer slouched in front of him. “Right there—that dude. That’srepparttar 118204 definition of drunk.”)

At her hotel, to which we necessarily took separate cabs,repparttar 118205 first thing Peggie did was crack open, and inhale,repparttar 118206 complete contents of a package of Mallomars. Then, from a utility-kitchen refrigerator, she retrieved and devoured (in exactly what order I don’t recall) a container of chicken wings, a combo plate of tacos and an economy-size tub of Velveeta.

Finally she put a Barry Manilow tape into her boom box.

Now it’s not that I mind Barry Manilow all that much, butrepparttar 118207 more appropriate musical accompaniment torepparttar 118208 night’s activities would have beenrepparttar 118209 theme from “Raiders ofrepparttar 118210 Lost Ark.” The thing was—and my insistence that we leave on no more thanrepparttar 118211 bathroom light was definitely a contributing factor—I could not forrepparttar 118212 life of me find Peggie’s vulva. I’d heard that this was a common occurrence with very fat women, and especially with very fat women in poor lighting, but it still took a lot longer than I would have expected. What was compoundingrepparttar 118213 problem? Simply put, Peggie’s body could have served as a Special Forces training ground forrepparttar 118214 field of hazards and challenges it presented. I’m speaking ofrepparttar 118215 twisting climbs and sudden valleys,repparttar 118216 crags,repparttar 118217 craters andrepparttar 118218 amazing plenitude of gullies, ravines and bogs that I was, and on my hands and knees, obliged to negotiate and traverse in my search. A dismaying project to begin with, my progress was further impeded by an extraordinary number of ambiguous fissures and crevices that, not quickly identifiable, required time-consuming investigation and study. You wouldn’t believe how many deceptive nooks and seductive crannies I came across. In fact, at one point, when I thought for sure that I’d located and enteredrepparttar 118219 secret cave, I discovered, to my chagrin, that I’d inserted myself inside of what was only a fold of fiercely perspiring epidermis. What’s more, I realized, when I looked up, that I was seriously lost in some apparently outlying district of Peggie’s anatomy.

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