Road Rage

My sister and I call my mom Ebeth (pronounced E-Beth, like email). Elizabeth, her real name, is just too formal. And “mom” is too generic. If I yell “EBETH” into a crowd I’m sure to find only my mother (or no one at all if I’ve done something embarassing and she’s trying to avoid me).

Ebeth grew up downhill skiing and actually raced professionally. And considering she was in high school before Title IX – that was quite a feat!

Now she’s a runner – a very fast runner. Like qualified for Boston by 20 minutes in her very first marathon fast. I think some people might be ashamed that running with their 50-something-year-old mother often reduces them to tears and whimpers of pain, but not me! I think it just means I can get faster!

My friend Kelly, Ebeth, and I after a race!

Right now Ebeth lives in Minnesota where she logs lots of winter miles on the treadmill. If she does brave the cold and run outside, she has to deal with a few obstacles: icy roads and road rage.

I don’t mean road rage in the typcial “driver-angry-at-driver” sense. I’m referring to when drivers are completely oblivious to the brightly clad runner just trying to do a healthy workout. The driver’s complete lack of a brain leads him or her to nearly run over the defenseless athlete. The runner, whose endorphin buzz has just been killed by the near loss of life, is so overwhelmed with rage that she feels an intense desire to attack the car like a spider monkey on steroids.

I think that was how Ebeth felt when she sent me this cartoon:

Hahhaha, I obviously inherited my mother’s love for stick figures and maybe a bit of her temper…fingers crossed the fast running genes will show up soon!