Entry posted by fishers64
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Picture the scene: my family has been doing pinewood derby car racing for the past 13 years. Undisputed experts. I gave it up about 6 years ago, but my brother is one of those engineer types who enjoys doing these things. He busted his tail building this super-cool body design, polishing the wheels and axles, and doing our brilliantly designed weight system that has won us a ridiculously high number of races. It's his last eligible racing year.
And he won the race.
The heats go down, the scores are tallied, and my brother won every last one of them. Clear and present winner.
But right in the middle of the heat, two other people walk into the race. They are late. They don't weigh in or check in properly. They should be ineligible to compete. Of course, the racing organizers believe whatever the parents of the late racers throw at them, because they don't have the guts to tell people the sad facts of life. Too bad, you're late, suck it up.
So they throw the results of the first race - the race that my brother won - completely out the window. And so they do the race again. The late racers chuck my brother's car off the track. He loses the second race. One of the late racers gets second place, and the first place winner doesn't make much sense (he was...about in the middle in terms of actually winning).
And so my brother won his last car race, but the organizers cheated him out of his trophy. Which is just sad.
What is more disappointing than the missing wood and plastic - hardly something worth getting depressed over - is that the plastic the "winners" got was by cheating. If my brother's car was actually bad, well, okay, but it just doesn't speak well for the people who ran the thing. If any of you all find yourselves in this position, get yourselves a backbone.
That's all I've got.
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