Currently Chasing: A First Place Win

I’ve tried to teach my daughter a valuable lesson when it comes to being a good sport. When we play tic-tac-toe and she wins, she jumps all over the table, does a victory dance, tells me it’s ok that I lost and continues to gloat. When I beat her she begins to pout, complain, shove the paper away and call me a cheater. She’s a bad sport. But she learned it by watching me alright! She learned it by watching me.

You see, I’m a bad sport. I don’t mean to be, I just am. And I know this about myself so I take measures to prevent it from happening. One of these measures being that I only compete in things I know I can win. I’ll enter a talent show, a karaoke contest, a rollerblading race and a poetry contest without blinking an eye. These are areas in which I excel. These are things I know I’m good at. Even if I don’t win, I’m not super disappointed. I know I’ll get second or third place, or I’ll at least go down knowing that despite someone being better than me, I was still pretty damn good. However, if I'm playing a friend in iphone Scrabble and she starts to beat me by more than 100 points, I'll simply forfeit the game.

I’m not going to enter a ‘who can be on time to work competition, a ‘who can stop texting while they drive’ competition, a math competition of any sort, a ‘who knows states and capitals’ showdown or a ‘where is this country/state located on the map’ party.

I just don’t like losing. But for some reason, being a girl means being in constant competition. Whether you like it or not. My friend and I are victims of this. If she has a lip gloss, I want it. It may look like shit on me, but she has it and I want it. If I go to the store and I can’t find the exact color she had, I’ll buy a slightly different color. She will see that slightly different color, determine without even applying it that it will look better than the one she currently has, and lose sleep until she can make the purchase. It’s crazy, it’s a neurosis, it’s a psychosis and it’s my life.

But when she decided to run the Marine Corps Marathon this weekend, well, I just had to give it to her. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I did work out this weekend as well. I did a very intense 15 minutes on the elliptical machine. But I’m just going to have to admit, in the case of who can run further, faster, and without puking and passing out in their own vomit, the answer is clear.

However, I was too busy to eat much yesterday, so I’m down two pounds since last week. Every woman reading this is already on the scale and ready to send me a text telling me they lost three. It’s a woman thing, and trust me, you don’t want to understand.