Please Tell Me I'm Better Than You

I can�t eat. I can�t sleep. And it�s all your fault.

WifeMotherMe left me a note a few weeks back saying that she�d nominated me for a www.diarist.net award for funniest diary entry for Someone Hugged Me Today. �How sweet!� I cooed at my monitor as I welled up with pride and excitement.

That lasted for about 5 seconds. Then the anxiety kicked in as I frantically started to wonder, �Who else was nominated? Who�s giving the award? What are my chances of winning? What if I don�t win? Should I protest the results? Do I need to campaign for this? Who could I bribe? How could WifeMotherMe do this to me??�

I have a bit of a competitive streak.

I was a straight-A student throughout high school and college, not because I�m smart by any stretch of the imagination, but because I wanted to win. I wanted the validation of hearing someone say, �You�re the best in the class.� I still get a thrill thinking back to the first time I did better than our soon-to-be class valedictorian on a calculus test. I did a cartwheel in front of her while laughing hysterically. No, really.

At work, at home, in the car � everything can be turned into a competition that needs to be won at all costs. The day our merit raises are announced, I run around the office probing people for information to see if anyone did better than me, and being genuinely confused when they look shocked and offended and refuse to tell me. �I don�t care how much you make, I just want to know that I�m better than you.�

I think this may be becoming a problem. I was in the parking lot of the grocery store, walking in to buy some pumpkins for Halloween. I stopped to grab an abandoned shopping cart, and I heard a group of young children get out of a car next to me. My eavesdropping allowed me to determine that they were also there to get pumpkins. �Oh god,� I thought, �What if they get there before me and get the last good pumpkin?�

I�ll be damned if I�m going to let that happen. I started walking briskly with my shopping cart, until I heard one of the youngsters say, �I�ll race you to the front door.� And we were off! I threw my basket to the side and heard it crash to the ground as I took off in a full sprint with all the conviction of an olympic hopeful. Beads of sweat formed at my brow, but I brushed them aside, unwilling to let the aches in my aging joints and atrophied muscles keep me from beating a couple of 7 year olds to the last perfect pumpkin.

I paused as I reached the front door and thrust my fists into the air like Rocky Balboa at the top of those stairs leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and I imagined the adoration from the scores of cheering onlookers who had witnessed my triumph. When I turned to point and laugh at the children, they weren�t close behind me as I had imagined. Instead, they were clutching onto their mother, obviously frightened, as she led them back to the car, presumably to drive away and go get pumpkins somewhere else. She glanced over her shoulder and shot me a look of fear. Sudden insight, �Holy shit, they think I�m crazy.� He must have wanted to race his brother, not me. Oops.

It�s a little disconcerting to know that there is now a family in town convinced I�m a dangerous retard, but to be honest, they�re not the first. I�ve managed to make a complete ass out of myself in any number of public places. But who really cares? In the end, I came home with the perfect pumpkin.