I am a real weirdo. Why am I telling you this?

a self-indulgent fantasy I engaged in while running yesterday:

using my blazing speed and uncanny nose for the back of the net, I have become an overnight soccer sensation. it's not so much due to having better skills than everyone else, although I am highly proficient. no, really it's more because I can pretty much out-run anyone I choose. most of the time I move at an easy (gazelle-like) lope but when I sense an opportunity, my feet grow wings. after a remarkably successful season in the US, I'm a semi-legitimate superstar and manage to play a pivotal role in a World Cup campaign. despite disappearing for long stretches of the first elimination match (against Germany) the team wins and I survive to score a brilliant goal during a 3-1 loss to Brazil in the next round. this leads to a lucrative contract with an unnamed (moderately famous) foreign squad.

however, problems arise. for unresolved reasons, the coach refuses to play me. after seeing only 25 minutes of action in the first 10 matches, I have still managed to manufacture a dazzling goal out of thin air. and yet I find myself firmly rooted to the pine. things take an uglier turn when I unthinkingly reveal my dissatisfaction with not playing to an American journalist who publishes some damning quotes (taken out of context, perhaps). word gets back to the organization, whereupon the coach refuses to speak to me or play me at all and publicly cites my physical conditioning as the reason. in retaliation, I enter a marathon the next week, which I finish in 2 and a quarter hours, no wait, 2hrs 50min (no sense in being greedy). my runner's bib (with my time stamped on it) finds its way onto the desk of an editor at a local sports tabloid.

realizing that things have gone too far, I call a press conference to publicly apologize for my bad behavior. describing the team as a body and the coach as the head, I relegate myself to the role of a mere finger, and claim (in somewhat broken speech, since my grasp of the language isn't all that firm) that "if the finger pokes the team in the eye no one will be happy." I am all set to make my apologies to the team at practice, when I had to get into the shower and lost my concentration.