It is fall of 2005. Mini-baboo, who is at the time 14. And a HALF. is doing his first or second triathlon.
He REALLY, DESPERATELY wants to big one of the big boys, (those big triathlon boys are SO COOOOOOL!) so he's hanging around sharing all the things he's heard Sweet Baboo say, or things he's read in a magazine.
At one point he overhears one of the big boys talking about struggling into a wetsuit, and he says, well actually he yells, excitedly,
"Hey! Hey! I know what you do for that! You're supposed to rub Spam all over your body!"
All heads, and I mean ALL heads, within hearing
distance, swivel toward this revelation."Spam?"
"Yeah!"
"SPAM?!?
"Could you possibly mean, 'Pam' ?"
"What's the difference?"
The difference was patiently explained to him. Being that one is a spray on cooking lubricant, and the other canned pork. Not that it might have been any less able to get you into a wetsuit, we surmised later over the T3 repast. But it is a bit smelly. Plus, we're vegans. No potted meats for us.
Our team, the Outlaws, likes to give nicknames based on something silly or embarassing, or some quirk about you. It took quite a lot of effort to avoid the inevitable nickname they wanted to bestow upon him (SpamBoy will never know how hard I worked on his behalf, to get him nicknamed, "El Chivato") as 14-year-olds do NOT have a well-developed sense of humor nor do they enjoy laughing at themselves.
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