The first time I remember feeling like a chump was when some girl named Brenda beat me up in the fifth grade.  She smashed my lunch box, then wallowed me around in the dirt on the playground at school . . . in front of a bunch of other kids.  And I had done nothing to deserve it, other than just being there and in the way.  I don't know what she turned out to be as an adult, but as a kid, Brenda was a porker.  She was twice my size (or any other kid's size in the fifth grade), and had a bad disposition.  Regardless, her beating me up like that made me feel like the world's biggest chump.

I didn't realize this at the time, but Brenda did me a favor.  Feeling like a chump was something I needed to get used to because I've damn sure had a liftetime of it.  I've spent lots of time in chump recovery - you know, those days when you're feeling like an ostrich in a concrete parking lot.  I hate the recovery period about as much as I do the chump moment, that exact time when I've just turned myself into a big jackass.  Sometimes getting chumped isn't all my fault, but I usually set myself up for it.  You know the deal.  Don't lie to me and say you don't because we've all been through it.

I won't bore you with my personal chump situations, but we'll review some that men often get caught up in.  If you see a car you just can't live without, and you know you can't really afford it because it's too expensive, and you buy it anyway - you just got chumped.  Getting caught in an affair with another woman is a major chump happening . . . and the recovery period for that one is quite lengthy.  Getting drunk at an office party and unloading on your boss about management problems is also a chump situation.  There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning, suddenly remembering bits of what you did and said the night before . . . and begging God to die so you won't have to face the embarrassment of it all.

If you drink, you're likely going to be a chump from time to time.  If you like to gamble, get ready, because you've got a chump situation headed your way.  And if you like the ladies and have a wandering eye, well . . . you know how that story ends.  If you don't keep an eye on your budget and end up  with debts you can't pay, you're a chump for sure.  Sometimes we get chumped just from being too eager to please, or from trying to take the easy way out, or from not paying close enough attention to details.  Getting screwed around by an insurance company (something that happens to lots of folks these days) is getting chumped.  Being victimized by a thief when you could have prevented it is being chumped. 

Getting chumped is going to happen to us in life because there's no way to avoid it.  There's just too many gunslingers (chumpslingers?) in the world to dodge all the chump bullets coming your way, but most of the time we could avoid it.  We set ourselves up for being chumped.  We make ourselves good targets.  It doesn't have to be that way . . . if you learn something from your experiences. 

I can't remember all the votes I've cast over the years, but I can remember all the ones for presidential candidates.  My first election was 1964, and I voted for Goldwater.  I don't regret it.  In 1968 and 1972 I voted for Nixon, and I regret both votes.  In 1976 I voted for Ford, and in 1980 for Carter.  No comment on those two.  In 1984 Reagan got my vote, and in '88 I went for Bush Sr.  Since then I've voted for Clinton twice in '92 and '96, and for Gore in 2000, and for Kerry in 2004.  Overall, my won/lost vote stands at 6-5 . . . and I've been chumped four of the six times I cast winning ballots.  I don't regret any of my losing ballots.

Sometimes I ask my Republican friends how they feel about their two votes for G.W. Bush, and the response is about fifty/fifty with half saying they regret the votes.  But the half who still justify them say, "You know, he hasn't been all that good, but if I had it to do all over again, I'd vote for him again."  To which my response is invariably, "Then that makes you the biggest chump on the face of the earth."  And if they've got the balls to stand and take it, I tell them why they're chumps.

The chump factor is a big thing in elections, whether or not you realize it.  Anyone with anything to sell, whether it's ideas or products, knows that buyers tend to be chumps.  Politicians running for office count on a certain amout of you voters being chumps, and so many of the things they talk about are are tailor made for you - ya big chump.  Big bucks are spent on finding out who the chumps are, where they are, and what they're most likely to go for.

I hate to use a worn out cliche, but it takes one to know one.  Yeah, I've been chumped before, and I'll probably be chumped again.  But I'm doing much better as a recovering chumpee these days.  I don't get chumped due to my religious beliefs because I don't have any.  My relationship with God doesn't fit with any of the religions I know of . . . nor with any political stance concering it.  And I don't like government, period.  I can't name a single government in the world today doing a good job.  Some are fair, no better than that.  But I still vote in elections with just a bare breath of a hope that it might make a difference.

And even though I try hard not to cast chump votes these days, I go to the polls in the belief that the biggest chump of all is the person who doesn't vote.  It's better to cast a ballot that later turns out to be a chump vote than to have cast no ballot at all.  Sooner or later, we might get it right.

D. Paz, 2/15/08