Routine physical

The Old North State requires all its public servants, including me, to pass a physical examination. This initiation should not worry a healthy person like me. I brush, floss and rinse with Listerine. I apply Neosporin to razor lacerations. I drink in moderation. I eat what is convenient. I skip staircase steps with my left leg to keep it as bulky as my right. I once (or thrice) waxed my overgrown eyebrows. I used to benchpress my body weight.

My appearance at work does not represent this healthy lifestyle. I am usually hungry. My ever-present baseball cap is left at home to expose thinning hair to adolescent masses. My tie hangs loose from an undone button. Dry erase marker powder discolors my hands and shirt, smudges my face and darkens my eyes. I am a business-casual soldier of the trenches who fights the enemy with inky knowledge. From one of these daily battles, I arrived at the doctor's office 10 minutes late.

"Are you stressed?" my new doctor asked me.

"No," I whispered. "I love my new job. You should have seen the last one I had." The week's laryngitis had reduced my voice to a car-start wheeze, the kind that suddenly alternates between inefficiently soft and offensively loud without apology.

"Are you a smoker?" he asked.

"I've had one cigarette my whole life," I mustered.

"Was it big and nasty?" he asked.

"It was Black and Mild," I said. "I swear the pack said mild."

"You look like a coal miner," he said.

He looked like a Duke doctor, but I didn't say anything.

Surprise landing

Carolina opened the season Saturday night with a strange win. A new Rameses mascot debuted after killing his father and predecessor in the off season. Athletic officials halted the game in the second quarter for nearly two hours because of a passing thunderstorm. Halftime lasted five minutes. Soundless lightning struck the press box in the third quarter and disabled the scoreboard. A large chunk of concrete fell from the upper deck, scaring many but injuring none. Malfunctioning elevators trapped at least one member of the press for hours. Brandon Tate gained a school-record 397 all-purpose yards on only 11 touches. His total slightly surpassed Carolina's total offense.

The strangest event of all of these rivals the Harvard vs. Yale vs. MIT stories. Two parachutists were supposed to deliver the game ball and fly a Carolina flag from high above Kenan Stadium, but they never showed up.

The parachutists had already canceled the jump mid flight when they saw an occupied football stadium through a break in the clouds. They jumped and landed minutes later in Wallace Wade Stadium for Duke's home opener against James Madison. I do not know if they displayed the Carolina flag, but I hope they did. They missed their intended mark by eight miles and 15 yards. Whoops-i-daisy.

Click here for the aerial miscue story: http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1200990.html

Click here to grow hair on your chest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXrbfgf8r18