It's official. I am a big Doofus.

In keeping with my stated policy of preemptive self deprication, I have a true story that I've been meaning to write about. This story confirms the long held public and personal opinion that I am, indeed, a big Doofus. Please keep in mind that I am willingly telling this story about myself. I only hope that my story can help others.

Last fall, specifically, October 18th, I made the long drive from McKinney to Mineral Wells, TX, for a ride called the Kiwanas Crazy Kicker. I knew this was probably going to be the last outdoor rally of the year for me, before we moved indoors into the spin studio. As all of my cycling friends are bigger Weather Weenies than I am, I made the two hour drive and did the ride, all by myself.

Before I go any further into this, in order to truly appreciate the story, there's a couple of things that you need to understand. This July, I will be celebrating 20 years of happy marriage to Trish. Trish will be celebrating 14 years of happy marriage to me. As far as I'm concerned, 14 out of 20 is not a bad batting average.

To quote an old joke, "the day I got married, I lost all interest in women". That is to say, that Trish has been pretty firm in her "no dating" policy ever since we got married. Frankly, in my opinion, she's been downright unreasonable about it. There's just no talking to her about it. It's just one of those things that we've just agreed to disagree on. So, with Trish's heels firmly dug in on this, I've pretty much let my skills at getting girls to agree to go out with me diminish. Just seemed kind of unnecessary.

Please keep all of this in mind as I continue with my story. It will help explain some of my Doofusness.

The ride starts at 8:00am, and I'm doing the 100k course, again, by myself. I ride into the break point at about mile 40. This would be the 2nd to last break point before the finish. As I'm standing there by myself, eating a cookie and drinking my Gatorade, an attractive lady in her mid 30's ends up standing next to me, and she strikes up a conversation. As a middle aged cycling dork, happily married for the last 20 years, I really don't pay this too much mind. I'm polite, making the usual bike ride conversation. After I finish my cookie, I wish her good luck with the rest of the ride, and I hop back on my bike and head down the road.

Now that right there ought to tell you just how much my girl attracting skills have faded over the years. Twenty years ago, if an attractive woman would have paid any attention to me at all, she would have probably needed to get a restraining order taken out to get me to leave her alone. But here we are, twenty years later, and I don't give her a second thought.

I ride another 12 to 15 miles down the road and I come to the last break point. Again, I'm standing there, minding my own business, eating another cookie or a power bar, and who should ride into the break point a few minutes later, but the same girl who was talking to me at the previous break point. She gets off of her bike, gets herself something to eat, and walks straight over to me.

Now I start to think that there just might be something going on here. Exactly what is going on here, I have no idea. I do recall this sort of flirtatious ritual from somewhere in my past, but as to what I'm supposed to do or say next, I haven't got a clue. We again make the usual bike ride polite small talk.

"Good ride, isn't it?"

"Yea. Lots of hills."

"Yep."

"Yep."

As you can tell, without even trying, I was just sweeping her off her feet. This continues for a few minutes, and I nervously start inching my way towards my bike. All I want to do is get the hell out of there, finish the ride, drive home, and confess the whole tawdry thing to my wife. As I'm just about ready to get back on my bike, with my virtue still intact, she hands me a slip of paper with her phone number on it, and says, "you should call me sometime".

OK, now I know something is up. At this point, I'm nervous and pathetically scared. As I have my cycling gloves on, she can't see my wedding ring, which contains some sort of magical power that normally protects me from these types of situations. Confused and bewildered at this turn of events, I smoothly and suavely blurt out the only thing that comes to mind.

"You mean, like, for a date?"

You really had to be there to understand just how pathetic I looked when I said it. I had this confused look on my face, my head did the Cockier Spaniel tilt, and if I'm not mistaken, for some reason my voice actually cracked when I said it. I truly was the walking, talking, living example of doofusness.

To her credit, instead of just laughing in my face, which would have been a perfectly normal response to my question, she just smiled and said, "Yea, just like for a date." Now, I'm just literally seconds away from a full on panic attack. I'm actually giving serious consideration to just running off into the woods crying. To my credit, I don't.

Somehow, I manage to gather myself, and I calmly explained to her Trish's "no dating" policy. I even manage to sound gracious, telling her that it's not that I don't find her attractive, but if I were to pursue this, the last thing I would ever see would be Trish standing over me asking, "How do you reload this thing?".

She's obviously embarrassed and apologizes. I tell her not to worry about it, jump back on my bike, and finish the last 10 miles of the ride in record time. As promised, I race back to McKinney and confess the whole thing to Trish. She thought it was probably the funniest thing, if not the saddest thing, that she had ever heard.

So doofi of the world, (doofi being the plural of doofus), behold, for I am your leader.

Peace out.....Nearly Famous Fred