August 18, 2007: Better Bed Than Dead

dignity: 1. the quality of being worthy of esteem or honor; worthiness 2. high repute; honor 3. the degree of worth, repute or honor 4. a high position, rank, or title 5. loftiness of appearance or manner; stateliness 6. proper pride and self-respect

From Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition

When I think of all those times when I’ve compromised my dignity, my mind quickly conjures two incidents. Both involved my participation in Charleston’s Corporate Cup. I could go into great detail and explain what the “Corporate Cup” is, but it’s much simpler and quicker to think of it as Charleston’s business version of the Summer Olympics without the boxing, weightlifting and triathlon competitions. And, of course, it featured a “bed race” and various mascots for the spirit competition.

You see exactly where this post’s heading. Yes, yes, you do. I’ll get to the good part soon. I simply ask for your patience.

Now the business I worked for approached competition with the attitude best exemplified by an expression popularized by the political maverick James Carville: When your competition’s drowning, throw ‘em an anvil! So that meant that while I could play a pretty decent game of tennis and represent our firm in the corporate cup, if we wanted to win the points for the tennis event, well, we better damn well enter our best player--and not someone who simply wanted to participate and have fun! And so on one very humid, 80 plus degree day in early July, I found myself wearing a giant mascot costume of a certain animal and cheering our company’s tennis player on to victory. (I don’t remember what happened. The heat coupled with my embarrassment erased the remaining memory I have of this event).

Oh, yeah. My official duties as the wearer of a giant animal costume of a certain animal required my attendance at every event if our team were to receive maximum spirit points. I think I was at our team’s softball game at Watt Powell Park and had just taken off the mascot head I had been wearing when someone on my team told me to put it back on:

“Hey, Hoyt. Put that head back on!”

You know, it’s one thing to wear a giant mascot costume. It’s entirely another to have to suffer someone’s nastiness while wearing one. And despite my tendency toward self-deprecation, I had to draw the line. I refused to wear that costume for the rest of the cup’s events, which, I’m sure cost our team significant spirit points.

(Stop the action a la Goodfellas on that frame where I’ve just taken off the head of that animal mascot costume: [Voiceover] That’s when I knew my career at this company was over.

Resume action.)

This same summer, I was also selected to be one of our four participants in the “bed race.” The bed race featured two teams racing a bed up and down the length of the YMCA’s gymnasium. Two people pushed/pulled the bed down the course, while the other two sat on the bed. As far as I’m concerned, the bed race is (and was) as much of a sporting event as competitive eating is. Sure, it takes some ability to maneuver the bed down an obstacle course, but in the end, is it a skill that anyone really needs?

Believe it or not, I had participated in our team’s bed race a year earlier, which was one of the reasons our business wanted me to lead that year’s “rookie” team. I remember explaining to the other three participants about what they could expect and devising a strategy that probably went something like this:

“Let’s get a good break. I’ll ride first. Then “J” and I will push/pull the second leg.”

And it seemed like a good plan at the time. When they announced it was our team’s turn to race, the four of us gathered around the bed--which I should mention was like the kind you get when you live in a college dorm minus all the usual mattress stains--and I sat on the bed with J. As luck would have it, the timekeeper was a well-known foe of my father, who had recently lost his job (and that’s worth another book entirely). Suffice it to say that if this were going to be a close bed race that I had serious doubts about the timekeeper’s fairness to our team.

The timekeeper blew his whistle, and our bed was off to the races. From what I could view, it looked like it was pretty close until the exchange. I hopped off the bed and pushed while J pulled. We had to maneuver around all these orange pylons and the crowd’s cheering was so loud that it made me nervous. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that our team was losing ground to the other team. We reached the end of the gym, and J began pushing the bed toward the finish line while I tried to pull.

I say “tried to pull” because what happened next will forever remain etched in my mind. You see, J was much larger than I was, and J’s pushing of the bed was overwhelming my pulling. In fact, so strong was J’s pushing that it was only after a couple seconds when I felt my end of the bed hitting me near my knees. And it was striking my legs HARD.

As J continued to push the bed, the prospect of the bed rolling me over became an incredibly real possibility. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a bed race had turned into an exercise of self-preservation. I remember thinking:

I’m in the bed race at the corporate cup. And now I’m going to get rolled over by a bed and die in the YMCA gymnasium in front of everyone.

J kept pushing the bed, the bed continued to strike me in my shins, and I struggled to “pull” the bed back in J’s direction to avoid the prospect of death. As the race neared completion, I wondered if the audience could see what was occurring.

My question was quickly answered after we finished the race and our team exited the gym floor. Nobody--and I mean nobody--said anything to me. I mean, sometimes when you do something stupid, someone will laugh or maybe you’ll joke about it. Or sometimes when things don’t go as well as planned, someone will say something encouraging. You know, “Nice job.” Or maybe “Good try.” But not this time. There was complete silence. It was the kind of silence that spoke volumes. It was the kind of silence that said:

Whoah, dude, you almost got run over and killed by a bed in the bed race in front of all these people in the YMCA gym.

I’ve never raced beds since.

But if you paid me enough money, I just might wear a giant mascot costume again.