Judge ran 4th out of 4 dogs. Ehh. Not the end of the world, for sure. I was surprised she made it into the finals; she wasn't even our top entry for the event. (Candidate Mate got knocked out in the semifinals.)

Gene apparently was having a bad night. Gene, of course, being the old guy who was yammering on about not getting dressed up for the event. Sure enough, he wasn't, just preferring to wear his regular track clothes. As I walked by, dressed to the ears in my suit and reeking of Royall Lyme, he started talking (once my back was safely toward him) again about how he's been there "for 37 years, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna dress up for something like this," blah blah blah. See, in my eyes, it goes beyond whether you think you have a shot at winning it or not. I think it's a matter of respect to the person who has the dominant dog in the race. You can sit there and be a whiney little bitch about it, and complain that this dog wins everything, or you can show a little respect, dress up, and be there to shake their hand when you're defeated.

I was there at the finish line as Konow won the race in a cakewalk. Wasn't even close. His time was again lower than the old record, so effectively he'd broken the track record 3 times in his first 3 attempts EVER at that distance. Not bad, eh?

I shook my aunt's hand, and then her trainer Beto's as well. Then Oscar Henderson and Georgia Medis, Konow's owners, after that. Congratulated them all. Even added a wry "...again" for my aunt with a wink and a grin. Walking back to my truck, I passed by Gene (coincidentally? okay, maybe I wanted to see what he'd do) on his way to his truck with his dog, who ran 3rd. (My grandpa/aunt's other dog ran 2nd, making it an effective sweep.)

He looks at me as I pass, and says, loudly, "Great race! Excellent job out there!"

Now, naturally, I could have burst forth with an F-You, which was what I FELT like saying. Instead, I didn't even blink and said back, with a big grin, "Hey, you did pretty good yourself, there." Then I kept right on walking, having never broken stride.

I thought no one else there heard it; Gene's the kind of guy who's only going to talk smack to your face when there's no witnesses. But Angelo was standing at the end of the walkway near a group of people, and he asked, "What was THAT all about?" Obviously, what we'd said wasn't nasty, but it was the tone of voice which gave it away.

"Ehh, I guess he's got a cob up his ass about getting beat tonight or something," I said. Angelo had heard him before the race talking about not getting dressed up and so on, so I think he put 2 and 2 together at that point and figured it out, since the next thing Angelo told me was, "Ehh, f--- him. He's a d---head anyway."

Kinda my thought process exactly. If the only person in life I piss off is Gene, I don't think I'll lose any sleep over it.

That got me going on another tangent, though. Gene's, like, 65 or so, and this is obviously not the first time he's gone off and spewed forth his disdain for something in public, shall we say. I've said it before and I'll say it again: When I get to be that age, I sincerely hope I'm not one of those elderly people who hates everyone and everything. In fact, as soon as I invent time travel (see a future post for my thoughts on that; I've given it some thought), I plan on zipping ahead and finding out if I turned out to be a grouchy old man. If so, I fully intend to bitch-slap future me across the mouth and hopefully try and remind myself of this post I'm posting right now.

Boing! Back to topic: "But, TFG," you ask, "what if Gene reads this post? Won't that piss him off more?" Well, pretty much no one in my work community knows about my blog. I think my sister might, but she doesn't care enough to read it, and even if she did, she hates Gene anyway, whereas I simply harbor a mild distaste for him. Nobody else does, though, least of all Gene, who strikes me as the kind of fellow who would sit at a computer for hours, unable to continue because he can't find the "Any" key. Funny thing about it all, though? His wife Helen is one of the nicest people at the track. Go figure. Anyway, Gene does the track Monday nights, which will be the next time I'll see him. I doubt he'll say anything further, and even if he does, I'm planning on being the bigger man and ignoring it. (Of course... I guess I'll be the bigger man anyway... he's kind of skinny.)