If you spend a lot of time outside, you may develop a debilitating appreciation for the natural world. There is a great danger that you might actually start supporting environmental causes and other strange ideas. Worse yet, your value systems may de generate from materialistic consumption into personal well being or some other equally phoo-phoo ideas.

You may start writing letters to the editor or actually become a columnist who’s willing to work for two or three dollars an hour just to spread your wild opinions. Yes, it’s a very sad state of affairs when a person sinks so low. There’s no telling what may happen when a person loses all contact with the materialistic world.

There are people living among us who never watch TV. There are people who have never seen the Broncos play baseball. These same people are likely to have never watched hockey, basketball, football or golf. Some of them don’t even drink beer and haven’t experienced the inside of a bar for years!

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Do you know what these freaks are doing? They’re out exercising. That’s right, these oddities probably don’t even know how to program their VCR to watch the Nuggets play hockey. They actually spend so much time outside enjoying nature that they’ve started naming deer in their neighborhood. They probably know every little trail for miles from their homes, but they have never seen Tiger Woods hit a slapshot.

These deranged individuals are infiltrating the masses with their subversive ways. It always starts out innocently enough. You might see one out walking on your way to the liquor store at halftime. Before you know it, you’ll catch a glimpse of them out jogging during the fourth quarter of the biggest game of the year. They just don’t care if we win or not.

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Pretty soon you’ll be able to pick ’em out in a crowd. They start riding their bikes to work. Some of them start exercising at lunch. They come back all sweaty and grinning. It’s enough to make you sick.

Once, after the best Monday night golf game in history, you know, the one when Brian Greasy shot a hole-in-one at the buzzer, this paper ran a beautiful six-page spread with all the stats and details and photos of the most incredible match ever. I ran into a guy the next day who was complaining because they didn’t print the results of some stupid local snowshoe race. It’s unbelievable how self-absorbed these people can become.

I was trying to talk to another bozo one time about the Colorado Buffaloes in the year they were playing for the World Series. This guy had no clue. He didn’t even know who the goalie was. He told me that he actually missed the whole game. He said he was out hiking on the Flat Tops and found some bison skulls or something dumb like that. What a loser. I wanted to paint a big “L” on his forehead.

Just before the Stanley Cup, when the Dallas Bears were playing the Chicago Rams for the PGA Championship, I was at the grocery store to pick up some pork rinds, and I ran into one of those runner-type guys at the check-out line. I don’t know how it came up, but we got into this argument about Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods. He thought that riding a bike over 2000 miles to win the Tour de France four times was more impressive than playing 18 holes of golf to win the Tour de Golf four times. He thought the “Athlete of the Year” honors should go to Lance.

He then went on to say that some guy named Khalid Khannouchi ran three of the four world’s fastest marathon times, and he dared to suggest that that guy was a better athlete than Tiger, too.

I tried to correct him and told him that golf was the greatest sport in the world.

Then he had the nerve to say that golf was barely an athletic event at all. He said it was a skill like darts or archery or bowling or billiards or skeet shooting. I just about lost it. I told him the “Athlete of the Year” award should go to the guy who gets the most corporate sponsors and attracts the best advertisers. No one wants to watch running or bicycling. The TV audience knows who the real athletes are.

The skinny wimp rode off on his bicycle. I was gonna chase him down in my Hummer, but I got winded walking across the lot and I would’ve missed the opening pitch of the playoffs trying to catch him.

It’s a dang shame that so many people spend all of their time outdoors. They’re missing out on some of the best games and commercials this country has ever seen. I can’t understand why there are people who prefer to be outside exercising when they can sit at home and watch other people do it for them.

If people want action, they should try video games. My thumbs get tired just thinking about it. But seriously … relax. Assert your genetic predisposition to not exercise. It’s your choice; pick a winning team and be number one, or exercise and be something completely different.

Your couch coach,

Resolutionly,

Bernie

“Never run after your own hat, others will be delighted to do it; Why spoil their fun?” – Mark Twain

Silt resident Bernie Boettcher’s column runs every other Thursday in the Post Independent.