Decatur ‘bacon dangler’ to hit the streets

Erica Ray, pictured before needing the motivational power of bacon, has competed in the fabled Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race. She has never won.

Few things motivate an out-of-shape athlete like dangling pork products.

Those who doubt such an assertion need only check a recent craigslist employment ad.

Job requirements? Keeping a properly prepared pork product near a runner’s face to encourage forward movement; running a few miles without going horizontal; fending off bacon-loving varmints (aka wild dogs) and potentially dodging bullets.

Pay? $10 per mile plus tips.

Curiously enough, the advertisement is not a hoax.

Decatur resident Erica Ray, 29, a Norfolk Southern field testing coordinator, has already hired what may be the world’s first bacon dangler.

Ray, who has tried her hand as a professional comedian, wrote the whimsical but effective ad because “getting to the gym has been a challenge lately so I figured bacon would be a good motivator.”

Dangled beef jerky or even a lit cigarette might also work in a pinch, she said in an email.

More than 10 people applied for the gig, but some didn’t take the proposal seriously and others “tried too hard,” said Ray. One “poor soul” responded with a generic blanket response, she said.

The lucky trainer who got the job, Joy Lee, who still proudly reminds folks she was voted  ”Most Athletic” for Creekside High School’s class of 2000, was as funny as the original ad.

Lee  claimed she secretly won 6 of the last 7 Boston Marathons; was from the South and knew how to fry bacon; and had helped Lance Armstrong win a few races in France. She also claimed to have rubbed herself down in raw meat before fighting a pack of wild dogs in a cage match wearing nothing but a sports bra and “obscenely tiny shorts.”

“Let’s just say I wasn’t the one who needed a rabies shot after, if you know what I mean,” wrote Lee.

Soon, Ray and Lee (which sounds like the first and middle name of a swamp cousin) and the sweet smell of bacon will be wafting along the 2 or 3 mile path to the East Lake or Decatur YMCA.

Someone please alert animal control.