Cursed With Ambition

Aquaterra Tri (Cont.)

Here is a video of the start.  Here is another photo of the start showing the downed K1 with Arild in the water.  You can see me passing on the top right.  I didn't know this until recently, but he broke his paddle somehow and that's how he flipped.  He swam to shore with his boat, borrowed a paddle and continued on.  Here is another photo taken right before the start.  I'm on the left of the screen obscured by an orange paddle.

Once the field thinned out and the helter skelter start was behind me, I settled into my best version of good paddling form and rythm.  I knew I had gone out pretty fast, estimating my pace at 6mph.  Every time I do something like this about ten minutes into it when the pain starts I always ask myself, "Wouldn't it be easier to just stay home and watch TV?"  Then I think of the immortal words of my father:  "All I want to do is drink beer and smoke cigarettes.  But I can't."  That's exactly right.

I concentrated on my form and watched the current of the river for the fastest line.  I figured we'd be paddling for about an hour, so I started to plot my strategy.  One of the guys in front of me, in the other Safari-style boat, I had raced against before and had beaten him by about a minute over a 6.5 mile course.  My plan was to stay within 30 yards or so of him and make a move in the last mile and a half to pass him.  About 20 minutes into it I saw another K1 over my right shoulder.  He was still behind me and not overtaking me.  So now I had two goals:  to pass the guy in front of me and not get passed by the K1.  The river was pretty wide and the water was silty so it was impossible to tell where the deep channels and shallow spots were.  In a few spots a line of fast-moving current would develop where the rest of the river got shallow.  Oftentimes, this line of current also passes on the outside of a curve, which is the longest course to take.  One thing I haven't learned yet is whether it is faster to cut the corner and take the short route or to stay in the current.  On one particular bend I tried to cut it and the other two guys near me took the current.  The K1 overtook me and the Safari boat put another 20 yards on me.  I knew I'd made a mistake, but I also learned to stay in the current.  On the shuttle van on the way to the starting line, the guys driving the shuttle, who were also river guides, told us to stay left of every island.  This I did and I found fast moving current every time.  The tradeoff is that you often have to hug the shore with its overhanging branches if you want to stay in the fastest current.

I tried a couple of times to pull harder and up the stroke rate to catch the two guys in front of me.  I was sitting in 6th place and I wanted to pass one more boat.  The K1 paddler was looking strong and I could tell he was pulling away, but I seemed to be slowly reeling in the Safari boat.  I had passed the guy in the Safari boat in the previous race we'd done together at about the 3/4 mark.  I figured that's where I'd pass him again.  Just then, I could hear a paddle hitting the water behind me.  It was Arild!  He'd gotten back in the water after breaking his paddle and flipping and caught me with about a mile and a half to go!

We finally came upon the bridge that the river guides told us meant we were about a half mile from the finish.  I was about 20 yards behind the Safari boat and as soon as I passed under the bridge I gave it all I had.  There was no way I was going to pass Arild or the other K1, so I was shooting for 6th place.  I passed the Safari boat with about 100 yards to go to the finish and pulled my boat onto the shore where a race director was showing us where to stack our boats.  I got out of my boat clumsily (the legs don't work so good after paddling for so long).  Here's a photo.  My stopwatch said 53 minutes.  Here's one of me pulling my boat on shore.  I call this picture "The Guns of the Navaojorojo."

What I failed to mention was that at the start of the race I knocked my water jug over and all of the water spilled out into the boat.  It was sitting behind me so I couldn't see it.  I tried to suck on my drink tube and there was nothing.  At the time it wasn't too big of a setback, but it would prove to be a big deal later.  Normally in these kinds of boats you have a foam molded jug holder.  Since I've only had this boat for a short time I haven't had time to rig my jug holder yet.

I ran in the direction the volunteers were telling me to run.  I went up the bank to the transition area where my bike was.  I intended to bike in my water shoes since they offer pretty good foot protection and they've got aggressive grip on the bottom to stay in the pedals.  My pedals were not the clip-in type and I don't have any of those clip-in shoes anyway.  I drank as much of my electrolyte drink from the water bottle I had as I could on the way to the bike.  I put on my helmet, grabbed the bike and ran it to the edge of the transition area.  You weren't allowed to ride the bike in the transition area for safety reasons.  I was pretty well spent from paddling so hard, but I figured using different muscles would make a difference.  I jumped on the bike and started up the first hill to the road.  I had no idea which direction to go so I hoped to stay close enough to bikes ahead of me to follow them.  The very first half mile or so was on a flat paved road.  I tried to get in a rythm, get a feel for the bike and use the high gears to pick up some speed.  Then there was a right turn up a gargantuan hill on a gravel road.  I groaned a little bit as I clicked the gears all the way down.  There was a photographer at the base of the hill.  I made it up about a quarter of the way and stalled.  My quads and my lungs were burning like fire and I could barely move.  "The pain!" I actually said out loud.  I tried to keep putting one foot in front of the other as I walked the bike up the endless hill.  The guy in front of me was walking his bike up too, so at least I wasn't alone.  I'm serious when I say I could barely move.  My legs felt like they were encased in carbonite.  Snot was pouring from my nose and I was wheezing.  "No way I finish 11 miles of this," I thought to myself.  I thought about the humility of finishing last, or worse, dropping out.  I finally crested the hill and got back on the bike and tried to start pedaling again.

The course had dozens of turns that I saw on the course map.  I was worried that I would get off track, but everything was very well marked with fluorescent surveyor's tape and fluorescent painted arrows on the ground.  I never missed a turn.  The course wound around the side of a large hill, up and down along gravel roads and what appeared to be narrow hiking trails in the grass.  There were other difficult hills where I stalled and had to walk the bike up with my quads burning again, but nothing as bad as that first hill.  I was being passed by other riders every couple of minutes now.  The lead that I'd built in the paddling section was evaporating.  One guy rode by, looked back and said with a concerned look, "Dude!  You need to raise your seat up!  You're going to burn out your quads!"  I knew jack about cycling, so he was probably right.  I'd borrowed the bike from Robo and it was in pretty bad shape.  I'd spent several hours tuning it up - repacking the bearings, greasing the chain, putting new brake pads on and making adjustments, but the seat post was frozen and I couldn't move it.  The guy right about one thing - I was burning out my quads.

Steadily, I made my way through the course.  There were a couple of terrifying downhills through ruts and loose gravel where I really picked up speed.  One slip and I was going over the handlebars and getting road rash, or worse.  At one point, the trail went through a section of tall grass, then trees and brush.  There was a hole cut in the brush that was the exact size and shape of a rider on a bike that you had to go through and then make a sharp right turn to avoid a tree.  "Bastards," I thought as I ducked through the hole.  The course flattened out and eventually I made it back to the transition area.  Volunteers were directing me to go down the hill to the transition area, but I didn't have any idea where to go.  I was afraid that they thought I was a relay team or something and that I was really supposed to have stayed up on the road.  I rode to where a group of racers was standing waiting on their teammates and stopped.  I asked the volunteer, "I thought we had to do two laps."  "You do," she said, "you have to walk your bike through the transition area and get back on the bike on the other side."  I would have known this if I wouldn't have missed the pre-race meeting.

I trotted my bike through and got back on.  The second lap wasn't eventful and seemed to go by faster.  I still got passed numerous times, got crushed by the first hill and cussed as I went through the hole in the brush.  But I made it.  Next, the run.

I threw my bike down next to my beach towel and took my helmet off.  I sat down to change shoes.  Man it felt good to sit.  I put my socks and running shoes on as fast as I could.  I took a long swig from my water bottle and jogged off.  I tore open a GU and downed it as I went through the transition area.

I was pretty disappointed by my performance on the bike.  I had anticipated doing poorly, since I didn't have the best equipment and I didn't train that much, but it was worse than I thought it was going to be.  Originally I thought I'd be able to make up some time during the run, but that was before I'd done two solid hours of hard exercise.  My legs were tight as I tried to run.  I was not moving very fast and I got passed in the first half mile.  Eventually I loosened up a bit and had a decent pace over most of the flat part of the course.  But then it went off road and got hilly.  The hills were killers.  The trail wound around through brush and trees and was actually very pretty.  The last mile or so was in the cooler forest and dense undergrowth by the river's edge.  I liked this part of the course the best since it was cooler running in the shade and the dirt was soft to run on.  I made my first lap and ran through a different part of the transition area directed by the race volunteers.  I saw dozens of water bottles stacked on a table in the transition area and I really needed some fluid, but I wasn't sure if they were staged there by racers and were owned or if they were community bottles.  Again, if I would have been at the pre-race meeting I would have known this.

I got back on the road and that's where my quads started cramping up.  At that point I knew I was pretty dehydrated.  I had at least 3 miles to go until the finish and I was worried that if the cramping got worse that I was going to have to drop out.  There were a few houses along the road and I started thinking about whether the race rules prohibited me from getting a drink from a water hose at one of the houses.  Most of the houses looked like no one was home.  At a couple of the houses there were people working or piddling around outside.  I was tempted to either steal a swig of water from one of the deserted houses or ask the people in the yard if I could have a drink from their's.  I looked behind me and another runner was coming up behind.  My pride and fear of violating the rules got the better of me and I decided to pass on the water and try to gut it out.  I did have to stop and walk a little in the hopes the cramps would go away.  I knew it was just a matter of time before they seized up for good, so I knew I had to be careful.  I even thought about drinking from the river or a mud puddle, but I never really seriously considered it.

I kept at it and gradually chewed up the course.  The cramps would come back and I'd have to walk for a bit.  But eventually I made it to the shaded section of the course that I liked and I knew I was going to make it.  I came through the finish line at 2:53:00.  Here are the final results.  I was 7th in my division; not sure where I came out overall.

I started hydrating just about as soon as I came across the line and the cramps went away.  Looking back, having my water jug leak in the boat was costly.  As I plan for next year, I know I've got to get the bike set up better and train on it more and on hills.  I think I can pretty easily shave 10-15 minutes off my time.  I've also got to get to the starting line in time to set my stuff up better, relax a little and attend the pre-race meeting.  It was painful, but still fun and I'm glad I did it.  I think it was good cross training for the Safari, which was really the point for me.  It is the last non-paddling event I'm going to do before the Safari too. 

Next races are the Safari Prelim and the Barrier to the Bay races.

TWS Training Log: 30 Miles on the San Marcos and the Aquaterra Tri

This past weekend was a heavy training weekend.  Robo and I set out on Saturday morning to Staples on the San Marcos river to do a 30 mile run to Zedler Mill in Luling.  I got up a little before 7 to start getting the gear and food ready and the supplement drinks mixed.  I got into Austin the night before at about 1am and I was pretty tired from the week because I stayed up late working on the boat.  Nevertheless, I felt fresh and ready.  We were meeting a group of experienced paddlers at Staples.  For those who don't know, Staples is a small cluster of houses on the RM 1977 highway bridge that crosses the river.  There is also a dam at Staples that we will have to portage.  Staples is the first checkpoint on the Safari and is about 16 miles from the start.  It takes good paddlers about 3 hours to complete the first leg.  I wasn't sure what to expect for our first time paddling with others.  Most of these people know who we are and that we are novices.  Many have reached out to us with advice and tips and offers to train with us.  I wasn't sure if there was going to be heavy observation and instruction or if they were just going to do their thing and we'd observe and try to learn from their example.  As it turned out, it wasn't much of either.  We showed up to Staples at about 9:15, 15 minutes late.  The people there were still arranging shuttles and getting their boats rigged, so it wasn't a big deal.  One of the guys, an older man named Zoltan Mraz, was a little peeved and was trying to hurry us.  We unloaded the boat and gear from the truck and Robo rode followed the shuttle to Luling while I secured all the gear and rigged the boat.

The shuttle got back and we humped the boat down to the river.  We struggled a bit with the put-in because there was a big tree in the way and the current was pushing into it at the base of the dam.  Our boat is 24' long, so it requires a lot of space to put in and maneuver.  We poked through the branches and eventually made it out into the river channel and immediately started running sweepers.  The week before we had really struggled with this section of the river, falling out numerous times.  The river is choked with overhanging or partially submerged trees and branches.  We made it through the first couple of obstacles without falling out of the boat; already better than we'd done the week before.  Most everyone else in the group put in ahead of us and took off.  There were a couple of people who were lagging behind.  For the most part, we never saw anyone during the run until we caught up with a guy who waited for us after a couple of hours.  He's another one of the older guys, 70+ years old, and he goes by the nickname Omar, which I believe stands for "Old Man And the River."  He's a former CIA operative and very interesting character.  He's also a geek for all things Safari, especially boat design and performance.  Until we met up with Omar, we did remarkably well.  We fell out of the boat 3 times total throughout the day and all of those were within the first 2-3 hours.  Plus, they were what I call Level II mistakes.  Two of the turnovers occurred because the stern of the boat swung into branches that the bow cleared.  The other was my fault and happened because I didn't pull out of a rudder turn soon enough  and we got spun out in an eddy.  Robo and I agreed that each dump was preventable and probably wouldn't happen again.

I tried to keep us on an eating and personal maintenance schedule during the run.  For the Safari, fueling, hydrating and taking care of our bodies is going to be critical.  I know we didn't take in enough calories and I didn't drink enough, even though I never started cramping.  When you are paddling you just don't want to pause or stop to drink or eat.  I also learned how to pee in the boat, which is harder than you'd think.  Last Wednesday I asked two of the guys I paddle with every Wednesday how to do it.  One of the guys is the driver for the famous Cowboys Safari Team.  He's a bit of a character and a great guy.  He explained the "pee down the paddle" technique.  I tried it with mixed success.

We came upon Omar who had beached his boat and was laying on the gravel sunning himself.  I think he wanted to paddle with us and give us some pointers.  He helped us with our paddling technique and also explained what an experienced team would do in situations that we ran across.  The best thing I took away from what he told us was that it is okay to get out of the boat at certain times like when the water gets shallow and the boat drags on the bottom, or if there is a sweeper across the river that is easier to go around than through.  This was a good lesson for me because I was so fixated on staying in the boat at all costs that I failed to see the logic in this approach.  Sometimes you save time by getting out of the boat.

With about an hour to go until we got to the trucks at Zedler, we started racing Omar.  None of us said anything, but we were racing.  We were even for the first 15 minutes or so, but then he pulled away from us.  He was in a new boat that he'd built that he called the "Mugly."  It was a skinny kevlar canoe that he'd painted red.  It wasn't a work of art, but I didn't think it warranted the name "Mugly."  My plan was to keep him within striking distance and then mount a surge over the last mile or so to pull ahead, but he kept getting further and further ahead until I knew we weren't going to catch him.  Several times I tried to pull harder and increase my stroke rate, but we never got close to catching him.  Despite the good feeling we had from running the river so much better than before, it was still pretty humbling to be whipped by a dude over 70 years old.

We pulled into Zedler after about 6-1/2 hours.  That's not a bad pace.  Only about 30 minutes slower than what good teams turn in during the Safari over the same distance.

I was pretty tired after our run.  I was doing a little better than the week before, though I'm not sure if that's a factor of fitness or the fact that I expended a lot less energy since we didn't fall out of the boat as much.  Still, with the lack of sleep and strenuous exercise, I knew I was going to sleep well that night.  I was a little anxious about it because I was doing a triathlon on Sunday and I had to be in Bastrop no later than 7am.  I know, crazy, right?

The Aquaterra Triathlon was being run for the first time this year.  The race director puts on a couple of adventure races during the year and he also puts on the second most popular marathon canoe race in Texas behind the Safari, the Colorado 100.  The Aquaterra Tri is very much like the Martindale Tri that I did back in October.  The Aquaterra consists of a 6 mile paddle down the Colorado in Bastrop, an 11 mile mountain bike ride through jeep tracks and trails near the Colorado south of Bastrop, then a 4 mile run on those same trails.  I had studied maps of the course, but the bike and run trails had so many turns and switchbacks that there was no way I was going to be able to memorize them.  I prayed that the course was well marked so I wouldn't get off track.

Robo and his new wife and I went out for dinner when we got back to Austin after our Saturday run.  A hot shower felt really, really good.  We went to Threadgill's where I had one of the best-tasting Shiner Bock draft beers I've ever had.  I ate a pretty big meal and fell asleep in the truck on the way back to Robo's.  When we got to the house I went immediately to my bed where I bet I fell asleep within 30 seconds of my head hitting the pillow, no exaggeration.

I set my alarm for 5:30.  I didn't actually get up until about 6 and I got all of my drinks mixed and gear packed.  I left the house a little before 6:30 and prayed I wouldn't have any holdups on my way to Bastrop.  I got to the boat drop a little before 7.  I was the very last person to drop off my boat ten minutes before the cutoff.  The people who do these things are psychos.  I sped to the race finish area where I'd be leaving my truck.  They were going to shuttle us back to the boat drop where the paddling section would start.  I parked and tried to get my bike and all of my gear organized as quickly as I could.  I could hear the prerace meeting starting.  I was pretty anxious about missing any of the meeting since I knew they'd be talking about how the course was marked.  I didn't roll up to the meeting until it was almost done and I missed all of the important stuff.  I was going to have to wing it and hope for the best.

I signed in and got my race packet and number.  They told me to stage my bike and other gear at a flag with my number on it like all the other racers had done.  I wished I had gotten there earlier so I could have organized this a little better.  Other people had beach towels or small tarps spread out on the ground with their running shoes laid out and their bikes and helmets sitting next to it.  I actually had a beach towel with me so I ran back to my truck for the towel and my running shoes.  I put together a makeshift triathlete's pad and staged my gear as best I could before being hustled on to the bus.

There were some pretty formidable looking characters on the bus.  A couple of guys with buzzcuts could've passed for Special Forces.  Others were obviously experienced triathletes.  I didn't really care where I finished.  I was there to train for the Safari, that was it.  My plan was to hit the paddle section hard since my only advantage would be here.  I figured I would have one of the faster boats and I was probably better trained at paddling that most of the others.  I knew the biking section would be my worst.  I had trained maybe 3 or 4 times on the bike and always on flat roads.  I figured I'd be okay for the run section regardless of the course since I run a lot.

At the start everyone was instructed to paddle their boats to a long gravel bar out in the river and stand by their boats.  This meant getting a good position on the bar was important.  I found a spot near the middle and planned how I was going to start.  Here's a photo of me getting my boat in position.  The race director counted down to one minute and I started my stopwatch.  The next sound was the starting horn.  I pushed off the gravel bar a bit so that my rudder and stern would clear the bar and I tried to jump in the seat.  There were people close on either side of me splashing.  I was unbalanced in the boat and leaned way over to the left taking in about 5 gallons of water.  I righted myself pretty quick and started paddling awkwardly with short strokes to avoid the people next to me.  Pretty soon I separated because my boat was simply faster than the plastic tubs.  There were about 40 boats or so that started and within the first 15 seconds there were only about ten ahead of or beside me.  Included in those were the boats I knew would be fasted - the K1's.  These are Olympic style sprint kayaks that are very hard to keep upright.  The guys who paddle those are usually experienced and fast.  Right then I saw one of the K1's go over.  To my surprise it was a guy who I had favored to win the whole thing.  His name is Arild Jakobsen and he's Scandinavian.  He won the Martindale Tri, so that's why I thought he'd do well.  By flipping I thought his chances of winning were over.  Gradually the field thinned out.  There were 3 K1's in the lead, then a guy in a solo unlimited boat similar to mine and another K1 pretty close behind me.

Gotta go.  To be continued...

Screw Freebirds, or, Why It's Okay to Get Angry

When burritos first came out as another option for fast food, I was thrilled.  The idea seemed perfect to me.  A burrito with the right ingredients is way healthier than most of the other options.  Plus, it tasted good.  For a while there I even daydreamed about opening my own burrito chain.  It was going to be called "Wrapido."  I thought burritos were the wave of the future.  I sampled most of the chains that came on the scene.  Freebirds, Chipotle, Mission Burrito and a few independents.  Freebirds became my favorite.  First and foremost, their ingredients were the best.  All of the veggies appeared to be prepped that day, the cuts of meat were generally better than the competition, they had several different flavors of tortillas - flour, wheat, cayenne and spinach - and sensible menu options.  Plus, I liked the fact that Freebirds was staffed with slacker college kids.  They were cool, you know, just doing their thing.  They seemed to be having fun together too.  I was already out of college so I got to relive it a little every time I went in there.  My only real beef with Freebirds, until recently, was the fact that their portion sizes were ridiculously large.  They had Regular, Monster and Super Monster.  Even the Regular was enormous.  I think food businesses that encourage gluttony suck.  But then they came out with the Half Bird, which used the same size tortilla as the Regular size, but with smaller portions of ingredients.  This made the perfect size for me and it was the only size I ever ordered.  Plus, it was the best value, which is a big deal to me too.  Quality, healthy, good-tasting fresh ingredients in a sensible portion and good value - I was very pleased.

Then the wheels started coming off.  I would order a Half Bird and every single time they would make a Regular size.  Then I would have to be "that guy" and tell the person at the register that they had screwed up my order when I asked for a Half Bird.  Their solution 100% of the time was to simply charge me for a Half Bird.  That only solved half the problem though.  I still had this enormous portion.  No big deal right?  Well, right, except that I don't like wasting food, so most of the time I would finish the whole thing and feel like a glutton. 

After the first five or six times this happened, I started to notice something else.  If you've ever been to Freebirds, you know how the line works with the burrito makers cycling from the end of the prep line to the beginning.  The process starts when the burrito maker greets you (usually with a slightly hip greeting - "What's up, man?  What can I getcha?").  Cool.  So you tell them, "I'll have a Half Bird on cayenne."  They grab the tortilla and put it in the steamer and ask you if you want rice and cheese, what kind of cheese and if you want black, refried or charro beans.  I would always tell them yes to rice and cheese.  Jack cheese.  Black beans.  And every single time they would pull my tortilla out of the steamer a few seconds later, walk to the rice and cheese and, having forgotten what I'd just told them, say "I'm sorry, did you want rice and cheese?"  And we'd go through the whole thing again.  I got very close to changing this inevitable routine by just telling them I'd wait until after they were done steaming the tortilla to tell them about the rice and cheese, what kind of cheese and what kind of beans when they asked.  In fact, I think I did that once.  Of course, then I'm a dick, right?  And in the psuedo-cool environment of Freebirds, that's just not cool.  Right?

The really shitty thing is that I GET why they don't remember what I said ten seconds prior.  The human brain is equipped to keep certain bits of trivial information in extreme short term memory and then purge them pretty quickly.  That way, you are not storing useless information in long-term memory.  This is why I, and lots of other people, are bad with names.  You meet a lot of people.  You only need to remember a few of their names.  You purge most of them and it's hard to get your brain to distinguish the memorable from the purgeable.  The burrito makers hear hundreds or thousands of orders and it's not necessary to keep them in short term memory for more than a few seconds.  In fact, if you get a burrito maker who tries to commit the orders to long term memory, that person would be storing and remembering a lot of useless information, probably at the exclusion of some other shit that they really do need to remember.  Imagine it like this:  it's important (if you are a guy in a heterosexual marriage) to remember your anniversary date.  You've only got one anniversary date, it's important, you commit it to long-term memory and you remember it every year, presumably.  Imagine if you'd been married 5 times.  Gets a little harder to remember wife #5's anniversary date, doesn't it?  Now extrapolate that to hundreds and thousands of bits of similar information and you see how it works.  So the solution, burrito makers of the world, is to ASK THE FUCKING QUESTION CLOSER IN TIME TO WHEN YOU NEED THE INFORMATION. 

I also GET why they ask when they do, even though they are wrong to do so.  They have just greeted you; in a "cool" way at that.  There would be an uncomfortable silence between you and the person you are now "cool" with if you didn't say something while you were steaming the tortilla, right?  So they use the questions about the rest of the order as a gap filler.  (Incidentally, this probably adds further to the difficulty in remembering the answers since it is essentially the equivalent of meaningless small talk.  We don't store meaningless small talk in our brains for very long.)  The reason they are wrong is that small talk in this situation is unnecessary.  I'm ordering food at a fast food restaurant.  That's it.  You might be slightly amusing to me with your witty nametag, nose piercing and/or she-devil tattoo, but I'm not looking to be friends and neither are you.  If you feel the need to speak, ask something like "Have you been here before/do you know what you want/how the menu works/etc."  Or, even though it might not make any difference, ask how long they want their tortilla steamed.  Nobody is going to know, so you just tell them that 10 seconds is the norm and by the time that little exchange is over you are ready to move down the steam table and ask about the rice and beans.

Jesus, I should have opened Wrapido.

But then, THEN, I go into Freebirds today for the first time in a while.  Months, actually.  Like always, I ask for a Half Bird on cayenne.  Sure as shit, the guy has to ask me twice about the rice and beans.  As we're going down the line, I notice this sign that says to exchange your Freebirds card for some new plastic card.  Like a lot of places, they have this promotion where you get a stamp each time you go there and when you get ten stamps you get a free burrito.  I have a Freebirds card and it had about 6 stamps on it.  I planned on exchanging my card at the register.  I make all my veggie selections and the guy wraps it up and hands me the bag with the letters "RC" written in black marker.  RC stands for Regular Chicken, as in NOT a Half Bird.  Unfuckingbelievable.  This time though, I decided I was just going to let it go.  I was worn out today and I just didn't have the strength to be "that guy."  Then I see a small sign next to the register that says, "Last Day to Redeem Your Paper Freebirds Card is March 31, 2008."  I knew it was going to go one of two ways.  Either 1) I was still going to be able to "Exchange" my paper card for the plastic card, since that's what the sign said and get credit for the stamps I already had, or 2) they were going to fuck me outright.  I get to the register and the girl (with nose piercing and she-devil tattoo) sees me holding my paper Freebirds card and verifies under her breath with another employee standing next to her that the last day to exchange the paper card was March 31.  She then turns to me and asks me what I had.  I roll the bag over to display the "RC" written on the bag.  Then she tells me, "The last day to turn in the paper cards was March 31st, so it's going to be $6.60."  It was option No. 2 - getting fucked outright.

I would have stood paying for a regular size when I ordered a half.  I would have stood for the card exchange deal.  But only one or the other, not both.  I asked her if I would be able to exchange my paper card for the plastic one.  She tells me, no, the last day was March 31st.  I showed her that the sign said the last day to "Redeem" the paper card was March 31st, so I should be able to "Exchange" my paper card for the new plastic one.  I didn't even hear how she responded, but it was basically "No."  Then she says, "We've had signs out about the cards for over a month."  I sort of tossed my paper card onto the counter as I told her, "Well, I ordered a Half Bird and the guy made a Regular, so I guess today I get the double whammy."  The girl takes a sarcastic tone and says, "All you had to do was say they got your order wrong."  And as she's typing in the correction on the register she says, "Wow."  Like, "Wow.  This totally unreasonable asshole is unbelievable."  She tears off the receipt and I sign it.  As I hand it back to her she says, "Sorry about your day" without the slightest bit of legitimate empathy.  The phrases "dirt nap" and "forehead piercing" flickered in the back of my mind, but I just took my food and left. 

I wondered as I walked to my truck whether I should have given that chick the what-for.  Should I have told her about the 100% fuckup rate, the double order question, the difference between "redeem" and "exchange," that just because they publish information about the Freebirds cards on a 5X7 inch card in their restaurant doesn't mean that the information on that card is imputed to me if I haven't seen it, that saying "Wow" like that should give me license to stick my fingers up her nostrils and pull her face into a glass door, or the fact that saying something like "Sorry about your day" is actually worse than saying "Why don't you go stick a red-hot poker up your ass?"

We're so conditioned to avoid confrontation and just "take it" that we forgo opportunities to make things right.  We have automated rationalizations like, "Oh, ordering a burrito is such a small thing it's not worth it to bitch."  Getting angry is natural, but it's being bred out of us.  How would I expect Freebirds to satisfy me as a customer unless I told them what they were doing wrong?  Take this beyond fast food and you can see why revolutions occur.  I get the feeling that the going sentiment is that getting angry, especially over something perceived as small, is not tolerated.  I think that's wrong. 

Get angry people.  Express how you feel.  Make things better.

And don't eat at Freebirds.