short story series: the throat-slitting eggbeater

sucked in by today's title? this short story is a classic meredith story. one that i tell quite often. and one that always gets a good laugh. so enjoy!

the throat-slitting eggbeater

     back in high school, the only sport i participated in was cross country. why? because it's the only one you didn't have to try out for. all you had to do was run...anyone can do that, right? 

     with that being said, cross country practice wasn't exactly my favorite time of the day. in fact, i dreaded it. i dreaded waking up at 5:23 in the morning to get to practice by 6. i dreaded then having to shower in the locker rooms before school (and sweat all the way through first period). i dreaded the days where i would forget to pack a shirt and have to fearfully wear a sweatshirt, hoping i wouldn't forget and take it off when it got too toasty. i dreaded the saturday meets when you would have to travel to some far out city for a run that would take about 15 minutes. needless to say, i did not love it. 

     during one morning practice, we had to run the food trail. the food trail was a path that ran through nearby apartments. we were all convinced that it was a camp for overly obese people because the trail was filled with inspirational quotes about eating healthy, and there were pictures of healthy foods along the side of the trail. flat out weird.

     on that very dark morning, while i was slowly trailing behind everyone, a woman stepped out from one of the apartments to start talking to me. normally at that early hour, we were the only human beings up and moving. so it was out of the blue that some woman showed up. she asked me if i had seen a man with a half bald head and a wife-beater. she then went on to inform me that this crazy half bald man slit her son's throat at her apartment the night before.

     

     2 things...

1. being my little innocent self, i had no idea what a wife-beater was. so my mind replaced it with "eggbeater." 
2. immediately i pictured a crazy man throwing his head back and giving the evil laughter, all while revving up his throat-slitting eggbeater.  

     i began running as fast as my little legs would take me. the crazy lady kept telling me about that grotesque story as i booked it back to the rest of the team. yeah right like i was going to keep on listening.

     so i got back to the team huffing and puffing and began telling the whole team about this crazy man with a half bald head who was slitting peoples throats with an eggbeater. an eggbeater people, not a wife-beater. 

     thank goodness my teammates were a wee bit more cultured than me. someone finally volunteered to ask if the man had a wife-beater instead than an eggbeater. after being informed that a wife-beater is another name for "guys undershirt," i realized my naive mistake. did everyone else know what a wife beater was? i sure didn't!
     although the crazy lady's story seemed right out of a horror movie (i don't want to be chased by an evil half bald man revving up his eggbeater), my slip of the tongue made the situation a bit lighter. turns out there was a man who slit another guys throat the night before. i'm not sure if we were allowed back on the food trail. knowing my coach, i highly doubt we ran that route after the big scare. but it did create a legendary story that has been told in many a cross country practices.