On The Pegs March 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 3 | Page 80

On The Pegs
80
building I had been hanging off the side of just moments before was a Sardinian
government. The color drained out of my face and I said “no – I thought it was
the hotel where the ISDE officials were staying.” She relayed this to the cops and
then told me that they wanted to know where my parents were, as the city had a
curfew for unaccompanied minors. At this moment, the Canadian team manager
and the mom of one of the riders swooped in and pretended to be my parents.
They apologized profusely “We are so sorry! We had a very good week, passions
were high … she just took the celebration a little too far.” I would like to take a
minute at this point to note that I am still decked out in my Team USA gear, the
Canadians are still covered in maple leaves and our accents sound nothing alike.
The cops turned to each other and began conversing among themselves. They
say something to the translator, give us a stern look and walk back to their squad
car. The women then turned back to us and said that the cops told her that
because they didn’t want to create an interna-tional incident, no harm had been
done, and I wasn’t a terrorist (which was what they had been worried about
when they first saw me scaling their government building), they would let me go
with a verbal warning and a promise that my “parents” would take me back to
the hotel IMMEDIATELY.
We all gave a collective sigh of relief (except for the handful of Canadians who
had been laugh-ing their heads off at the whole time). The translator then added
– I don’t think they intended for me to tell you this, but they definitely know
these people are not your parents and the only reason you got off the hook to-
night was because they’re at the end of their shift and didn’t want to fill out the
paperwork.
Story Number Two: For those of you that don’t know, I was a decent colle-
giate pole vaulter. I wasn’t Division I material, but I was at one time ranked in the
top 30 in the country at the Divi-sion III level. My track coaches had a very uneasy
relationship with my racing. They knew if they tried to make me quit or bad-
mouthed it too much, I’d just stop vaulting and they would lose an easy twenty
points every meet. Well, most meets. There were plenty I had to miss for races,
and many others that I showed up to bleary and exhausted from driving. I loved
vaulting and even to this day I miss it, but racing was always the most important
thing in my life.