No One Messes With Lance Armstrong

Terrence is an Olympic runner, but these days he’s no spring chicken. The last time he qualified for the games was in 1996, and he came in last place in the event in which he competed. However, he got a renewed sense of purpose when he ran into Lance Armstrong at a park one evening, and Lance offered to train him for the next summer Olympics. Today, he trains about 10 minutes every week with his 3 pet dogs and Lance Armstrong, jogging around the park by his house. One of his biggest obstacles when training with Lance Armstrong has been the fact that Lance Armstrong is an expert at riding bicycles, not running. A lot of his training ideas involve moving one’s legs in a circular fashion, as if pedaling while riding a bicycle, and naturally it is impossible to balance when doing this because it requires the defying of gravity. Terrence has done his best to use these strategies, but they simply don’t work.

One night as Terrence was about to go to sleep, he heard the sound of glass breaking. He got up, and walked to the front door. Lance Armstrong was standing there, deadpan expression, holding a baseball bat.

“What’s up Lance?” Terrence asked.

Lance Armstrong didn’t say a word. He stood there, his eyes boring holes into Terrence’s soul. He stepped forward a few steps. And then a few more steps. He was getting close to Terrence.

“Lance, is there a problem? What are you doing here? It’s late…”

Lance Armstrong swung the bat at Terrence’s left knee. His bone jutted out the side of his knee and he crumpled to the ground on his back, screaming. Lance calmly moved around to get a better angle, and swung the bat down on the fallen Terrence’s right knee, shattering the kneecap. He dropped the bat to the floor and walked back towards the door. He turned his head around half way back towards Terrence and muttered “No one messes with Lance Armstrong…”

- Kent Wicklander