See No Lay People

I was at Nutriformance last night in the midst of a pretty painful hour long hybrid workout. I made the mistake of blasting off with the Geezer on a 30 mile bike ride just prior to picking up my daughter and making the 5:00 class with Amy Strahan. This is a core workout and I love to see my little girl suffer through the pain. She needs the preparation, she starts college soon and I want her to be optimal. Sursly, it is our time together and I enjoy working out with her.

Now, you have to understand Nutriformance. This place is pretty dialed towards the performance athlete in some ways and in other ways, it is a haven for conservative old money and their wives. Since it is in downtown Frontenac MO, the hallways rarely echo with anything supporting the left and hardly a member within a kettle ball throw supports anything other than the republican party. Just sayin.

So yesterday when I was on the stair stepper (my simulation of choice for the Missouri River 340 in July) churning away the rest of my caloric intake for the day, two gentlemen behind me were going at it with their mouths on the elliptical machine. You guessed it, on the topic of the health care bill. They were speaking so loud that I couldn't help but hear and it was really quite annoying. I thought to myself, had these guys read the bill?-- and do they truly understand what it means? I was getting a little worked up because they were posturing for whatever reason.

I mean, I have not read the bill and I don't understand it, and, at the risk of sounding like I wasn't "old money" in an "old money" joint, I turned around, glared at them and gave them a slow head shake. No, not because I don't agree, hell, I don't like government either, but because I am friggin sick of the armchair opinion of everyone I come in contact with on this topic. These guys were speaking so loud in an effort to posture themselves as "know-it-all conservatives", I was nearing projectile vomit condition. I was a captured audience and couldn't even face them eye to eye, this by means of my 20 minute ball busting workout. They were projecting right at the back of my neck. I couldn't even hear Hannity on the TV.

Is it not time to talk about other things?-- like bike parts and music genre and colleges and hats. I am so checking out again soon, to get away from the negative dolling of people like this. Gonna take a 4 day solitude retreat by myself and write myself in to mental condition. Word.

Anyway, I asked my business partner the other day, "do you know what the health care bill means to us as a business?" He said that since we already offer a health care option to our employees, that we should not have to pay more. I asked him about the IRS, their role in enforcing the health care requirements. (Let's get straight to the guac here, the IRS does not need to send me letters on anything ifyouknowhatimtalkinbout). He said that people will be faced with forfeiting their tax return if they do not maintain coverage. But that is about it, the IRS does not have much other than that ability to enforce. Taylor is a smart guy.

Then I got to thinking. If there are cheaper options with better care and my employees decide to pay for all of their coverage instead of half through some other source, then we will likely either not have to extend our benefit to the employees, or we will suffer and increase in costs due to a lower participation in the group plan. So I think I got it figured out. I wonder if those dudes really have a connection to their business or a business at all? Who knows who these dudes were or what they do?

So there I was, pumping away at the machines, listening to the old farts behind me talking about the country going down hard and quick, and I thought: "I wonder if they would be prepared to handle a big change, defend themselves if the shit really hit the fan. What if our economy tanked, if anarchy ruled, if martial law came down and if they were to have to defend their West County Mansions against whatever comes at them? I was thinking, "Would they arm themselves, protect themselves, and who, really, would be their threat?"

It is more likely that they are asking themselves "who is going to protect us from them, the other people, the poor, the unsettled, the minions, the lay people?"

Folks like this truly don't have a clue as to how to make it in this world, how to pinch, finagle, make due. I looked back at the two of them again, both taking it easy on the elliptical, speaking as if they were standing in a checkout line at Straubs, no real effort taking place on their part. I laughed at them, and got off my stair stepper in a lake of sweat. I shook my head at them again and said "guys, can't we get a break from the rhetoric?" Silence....

...that was all they had.

Yep, I nailed it, because, while preparing for my 340 mile kayak journey in July, my ascension to the volcano in September, my bike races and my overall kick ass attitude towards life and the world I live in, I would rather call somebody out in the spirit of intellectual conflict than let things go. Those guys really don't know where the world is going, theirs is small. And my guess is that if they had the answers they would have their candidates in office making laws in favor of their stuff, their old money, their entitlement, protected and controlled. I suppose I can relate a bit, because I am a business man and I am making a go of it. But I am also one who has had to conform and make money in order to keep up with their standard.

Again, the political backdrop is the problem. Lets let the thing come crashing down and we will see who the hero's are and who is to blame. Pick one, the government or those protecting wealth. It ain't the lay people.