The Look of NASCAR

By the title of this blog, I know that you are thinking that I’m going to write something about people who look like this:

But I’m not.  I’m sure I will another time, after I’ve had a few beverages.  What I’m talking about is actually the look you get when you tell someone that you (or your significant other) works for a NASCAR team.

I wonder if the teams down south go through this.  But here in Denver, once it comes out of your mouth, you immediately have to gauge the recipient’s reaction.  Because it will be one of two things:

They’ll either think it’s really cool.

Or they’ll think you just landed here from Planet Redneck.

Apparently I’m not the only one who has noticed this since when I brought up the idea for this blog to Mike’s oldest son, his response was, “That happens to me all the time!”  I, personally, discovered this early on, when Mike and I started dating.  When I would tell my friends what he did, I would usually get a thoughtful glance and a “huh.”  And then I would immediately have to rush in with, “But he has all of his own teeth and I’ve only heard him say ‘let’s git ‘er done’ once since we’ve been dating!”

Now, when I get that reaction from a stranger, I feel the need to explain in depth how technical the sport actually is (which usually requires me to start from the beginning about why it’s even considered a sport) and that it involves more than just pushing a button, setting up the cruise control, eating your Subway sandwich, and turning left.  And my “technical” explanation about how it all works (since I don’t understand technology at all and I think the operating system on my computer is electricity), is usually pretty sub-par.

When Mike and I go out, I can tell by his mood whether or not he wants to tell people what he does.  If we sit down at the bar next to a stranger and start in on a conversation, it’s pretty obvious by his body language when he’s thinking, “Please don’t ask me what I do.  Because that will require me to listen to your story about the race you almost went to in 1985 but couldn’t because your truck couldn’t carry all of your cousins and then I’ll have to agree to take you on a tour of the shop that you won’t remember you agreed to in the morning.”

I would imagine that if you live and work on a team anywhere near Charlotte, when you tell someone what you do, the first thing they’ll ask you is, “What team?”  But in Colorado, it’s usually met with, “We have a team?”  And then you have to get into the history of why Furniture Row is here in Denver in the first place and how you ended up here yourself.

This could take hours.

By then your date has left the conversation to go play pool with the people who work in the finance department of Century Link because further explanation on that job is not necessary and they have copious amounts of time to perfect their game.

Well.  Maybe that’s just me.