Intentional facemask

In honor of the 2011 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which were recently broadcast on ESPN2 in the middle of the night, I have put together a little activity for your workday-diversion pleasure. (Just in case you get sick of playing Farmville.)

Based on the popular children's book series found in pediatrician waiting rooms across the country, this game pays homage to America's up-and-coming golden child of distance racing. I call it "Where's Galen?"

Now that it is abundantly clear that Mr. Rupp's creepy facemask was no one-time fix, I figure we better get used to picking him (and his new disguise) out of a crowd. Gone are the days when race spectators could identify the formidable U of O track product by looking for his signature Breathe Right nasal strip.

The strip has been replaced by a full nose-and-mouth shield that could easily be mistaken for any of several mug covers. This exercise is intended to help you learn to distinguish Rupp's "asthma mask" from a sampling of look-alikes. Good luck.

Inspiration part II: my nasal brainchild

So there I was, pounding out a seemingly endless treadmill workout with the world’s most fetid breather outputting a constant stream of hot, nasty stink approximately three feet to my left.

I tried in vain to distract myself from the foul odor I was forced to absorb with each inhalation. First, I cranked up the volume of my iPod and scrolled through my playlist in search of a tune that could carry me away from my miserable reality, if only for a few fleeting moments.

Somehow, listening to Kelly Clarkson belt out the lyrics, “Since you been gooonnnnnnnneee, I can breathe for the first time, I’m so moving ooonnnnnnnnn, yeaheeeeeeeyeahhhh,” just wasn’t as motivating as usual. (Come on, admit it—you love working out to Kelly Clarkson too.)

Using more force and energy than necessary, I dramatically ripped my headphone cord out of my iPod and shoved it into the plug-in for the built-in TV. My overly animated display of frustration did not affect my malodorous neighbor in the slightest. He was much too focused on an old episode of Gunsmoke that he had probably seen 26 times since it originally aired in 1964.

I furiously flipped through the channels in search of a program so fascinating that I would completely forget where I was and what I was smelling. You know, something like Cheaters or Sarah Palin’s Alaska.

I started with my old standby, the E! Channel: commercial. So I switched to my second favorite, TLC: commercial.

Growing increasingly angry and annoyed, I quickly moved through my list of choice cable networks: Food, Style, ESPN, Animal Planet—even The Weather Channel. And guess what I saw? Commercial, commercial, NASCAR, commercial, commercial.

Well, since rednecks wrecking cars—ahem, sorry, I mean “motor sports”—doesn’t really do it for me, I was forced to watch several minutes of television advertising.

I was in a very cynical mood, so every product I saw on the screen looked like the dumbest thing ever invented. I found myself thinking things like, “Tires? Who the crap buys tires? L-A-M-E!”

Then came an ad for a new DirecTV feature that allows viewers to pause their television programming in one room and resume watching it in a totally different room on a totally different TV. This service seemed to me, at first, totally ridiculous.

But as I rotated my head from Mr. Halitosis on my left, to the rows of empty treadmills on my right, to the partially completed distance on the display screen in front of me, I was suddenly struck with a brilliant idea for a more practical application of DirecTV technology.

What if I could pause my workout on my treadmill and resume running on a machine located several (dozen) feet away from Limburger-Cheese-Breath? I could call it DirecTM and market it to gyms and cardio equipment manufacturers all around the world! I could become a multi-jabillionaire and never have to work out next to anyone ever again because I’d have enough money to build my own private gym and stock it with as many treadmills as I wanted! And it would probably make me taller and tanner with less unwanted hair!

OK, sometimes my fantasies get out of hand when I’m suffering from the effects of excess oxygen consumption. But come on, look me dead in the eye and tell me you’ve never been in a situation where this might come in handy.

That’s what I thought. Contact me when you’re ready to invest.