Shindog
21-12-04, 09:53 AM
Ask and you shall receive. Rather than start a new thread for every story I'll just take a page from Kilrogg's book and just use this one. As usual responses and critism are welcome.
The Reason
I’ve always been fascinated by reasons. The whys behind the things that people do. Why did Hillory climb Mt Everest? Because it was there. Why did Martin Luther King Jr. fight against racism in Alabama? Because he had a dream. Why did Dire Straights get into the music industry? Money for nothing and chicks for free. Every historic act had many smaller equally important but much less known acts that lead to it. There is a reason that the Titanic sank, there is a reason the South lost the battle of Gettysburg and most importantly there is a reason that I kicked an eighty year old Chinese woman. Let me explain.
The first of these events that led to my heinous act happened way back in the year of 1989 my fellow members of the internet generation members will of course remember this to be the year that the original Batman series was re-released on after school television. This was the classic after school activity that taught me and every other seven year old super-hero-in-training that if we studied hard we too could beat up an entire room of masked henchmen with out ever having to actually punch any body or being skinny.
The problem for me in watching this show wasn’t in the fist fighting strategy Batman used but rather what he did when the evil master mind finding all henchmen soundly beaten, decides that he who fights and runs away doesn’t get his butt kicked bat style. Times like these were when Batman would whip out one of his endless supply of
Bat-arangs and throw it squarely into the back of the villains head, knocking him out soundly. This taught the impressible seven years old that I was three important lessons:
1) Don’t run away from your problems
2) If a bad guys running away from you it is okay to throw a blunt object at his head in order to stop him.
3) Not even Batman can get a boomerang to come back.
Going through life armed with this knowledge I lived for the day that I could finally put the training into practice. 10 years later at age seventeen I got my chance, this was event number two.
I was walking home from school with my girlfriend Jennifer. I remember it perfectly. It was like every snatch and grab I had ever seen on TV.
“Stop thief!” The elderly woman’s shrill voice rang out behind me. “He stole my purse, somebody stop him!”
I knew in an instant that I was the somebody she was pleading with. Adrenaline surged through my system causing my every sense to operate at levels normal reserved for ninja masters and giving me the energy of a four year who has just been giving an entire package of Oreos. I could hear him running up behind me. I silently selected my Spanish-English dictionary from the top of my stack of books. I immediately figured out the exact instant I’d have to throw the book for maximum surprise and impact. I readied my shot.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jen asked my sharply even though I’m pretty sure she already knew.
“I’m gonna stop him with my dictionary.” I explained trying to add a twinge of ‘please don’t spoil my life’s dream’ to the tone of my voice.
That dear sweet girl, she was the first love of my life and she understood me better than anyone else I knew at that time. I know she could hear how important it was to me to live out my superhero fantasy.
“No you’re not,” she crushed my every dream with the words. The pit in my stomach could not have been bigger. “Are you stupid? He’d kill you.” I guess it could.
As I watched the perpetrator slowly get smaller and smaller on the horizon I could feel my chances of superhero glory get shrink with him until they finally ducked into an alley and out of sight. At that moment I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never again allow an evildoer go free as long I was around to stop it and Jennifer was not around to stop me! Little did I realize the effect such an oath would lead to.
It, of course, led to event number three, the conclusion of this horrid trilogy. Four years had come and gone with out me being able to act upon my oath. It was still there, mocking me from the back of my head calling me a coward and a failure. Fortunately for my sanity I finally came into a situation giving me the chance to step out of my world and into the world of my heroes.
I was in Chinatown one afternoon. I had just finished a meal in the GreasePit and was heading to the video store to check out that cashier while I pretend that I could read the back of all the movies. As I waited to cross the street however a dark car pulled over in the bus zone just up the street from me in front of the First Bank of China. Two men jumped out of the back seat and ran quickly into the bank. I was a little suspicious of these people, calling their bank the First Bank of China when it was in America and had only opened two years ago but I was even more suspicious of the two men who had just gotten out of the car because as they walked into the bank they slipped ski masks over their faces.
While I mentally scrolled through the many superheroish options of how to foil the bank robbers’ scheme a stroke of luck went in favor of the good guys. A bus pulled up to use the bus zone forcing our wheelman to reluctantly pull forward an eighth of a block placing me squarely in between the robbers and their getaway car.
I took a quick inventory of what I had with me that could be used as a weapon with which to defeat the adversaries. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my utility belt was grossly under stocked and that throwing my wallet at the criminal’s head was not the most effective option. I would have to rely solely on a physical attack. Given the circumstances I figured there to be three options:
#1: I could use my basic knowledge of football to blast the first perpetrator with a spearing tackle.
Pros: He would never see it coming. No body would expect some scrawny kid to bust such a move.
Cons: I was pretty skinny, no guarantee that I would be able to generate the force to bring him down. Also the second criminal would be easily able to escape.
#2: Taking a lesson from my other childhood hero Hulk Hogan, I could clothes line the crooks knocking them both to the ground and hopefully unconscious.
Pros: Clotheslines are quick and easy. If they were running in the right way, I could even get both with same shot.
Cons: Pro-wrestling is not real.
#3: I could face the other way and when the bank robber came running past me to get to his car I could whip and around quickly and kick his legs out from under him and leave me in the perfect position to launch myself at the second one in a jump kick that would make old Batman proud.
Pros: It was the perfect plan.
Cons: It was almost too perfect.
I got myself in position. There was no way that they could have suspected my motives. I even nonchalantly pulled my cell phone out of my pocket so I could make a fake phone call.
As I rambled on meaninglessly to nobody about some imaginary assignment my mind wandered of to scene of my name in the papers, herald as a hero. Images of explaining my escapades to throngs of swooning girls danced in my head. I could even taste the sweet feeling of cops letting get away with speeding once in a while. The sound of footsteps behind me snapped me out of my delusions of grandeur and into action.
I cannot explain how I knew, but I could feel his presence coming up behind me. With superhero like reflexes I whipped around legging flailing with pinpoint accuracy, right into the arthritic hip of some old Chinese lady. I was too shocked to help her up. I just stood there, absolutely abhorred at myself. People started staring at me. When the second guy came out of the bank, he couldn’t find the getaway car. He joined everybody else in playing a little game of “Everybody stare and laugh at the skinny white kid who just kicked a geriatric”.
In my shame-spawned panic I figured there was at least one guy who I could get to stop staring at me. “It’s over there.” I said pointing to the car. He got in and I walked home a broken, beaten and shamed man never again to dream of being a superhero.
At least not without Jen there to protect me.
The Reason
I’ve always been fascinated by reasons. The whys behind the things that people do. Why did Hillory climb Mt Everest? Because it was there. Why did Martin Luther King Jr. fight against racism in Alabama? Because he had a dream. Why did Dire Straights get into the music industry? Money for nothing and chicks for free. Every historic act had many smaller equally important but much less known acts that lead to it. There is a reason that the Titanic sank, there is a reason the South lost the battle of Gettysburg and most importantly there is a reason that I kicked an eighty year old Chinese woman. Let me explain.
The first of these events that led to my heinous act happened way back in the year of 1989 my fellow members of the internet generation members will of course remember this to be the year that the original Batman series was re-released on after school television. This was the classic after school activity that taught me and every other seven year old super-hero-in-training that if we studied hard we too could beat up an entire room of masked henchmen with out ever having to actually punch any body or being skinny.
The problem for me in watching this show wasn’t in the fist fighting strategy Batman used but rather what he did when the evil master mind finding all henchmen soundly beaten, decides that he who fights and runs away doesn’t get his butt kicked bat style. Times like these were when Batman would whip out one of his endless supply of
Bat-arangs and throw it squarely into the back of the villains head, knocking him out soundly. This taught the impressible seven years old that I was three important lessons:
1) Don’t run away from your problems
2) If a bad guys running away from you it is okay to throw a blunt object at his head in order to stop him.
3) Not even Batman can get a boomerang to come back.
Going through life armed with this knowledge I lived for the day that I could finally put the training into practice. 10 years later at age seventeen I got my chance, this was event number two.
I was walking home from school with my girlfriend Jennifer. I remember it perfectly. It was like every snatch and grab I had ever seen on TV.
“Stop thief!” The elderly woman’s shrill voice rang out behind me. “He stole my purse, somebody stop him!”
I knew in an instant that I was the somebody she was pleading with. Adrenaline surged through my system causing my every sense to operate at levels normal reserved for ninja masters and giving me the energy of a four year who has just been giving an entire package of Oreos. I could hear him running up behind me. I silently selected my Spanish-English dictionary from the top of my stack of books. I immediately figured out the exact instant I’d have to throw the book for maximum surprise and impact. I readied my shot.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jen asked my sharply even though I’m pretty sure she already knew.
“I’m gonna stop him with my dictionary.” I explained trying to add a twinge of ‘please don’t spoil my life’s dream’ to the tone of my voice.
That dear sweet girl, she was the first love of my life and she understood me better than anyone else I knew at that time. I know she could hear how important it was to me to live out my superhero fantasy.
“No you’re not,” she crushed my every dream with the words. The pit in my stomach could not have been bigger. “Are you stupid? He’d kill you.” I guess it could.
As I watched the perpetrator slowly get smaller and smaller on the horizon I could feel my chances of superhero glory get shrink with him until they finally ducked into an alley and out of sight. At that moment I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never again allow an evildoer go free as long I was around to stop it and Jennifer was not around to stop me! Little did I realize the effect such an oath would lead to.
It, of course, led to event number three, the conclusion of this horrid trilogy. Four years had come and gone with out me being able to act upon my oath. It was still there, mocking me from the back of my head calling me a coward and a failure. Fortunately for my sanity I finally came into a situation giving me the chance to step out of my world and into the world of my heroes.
I was in Chinatown one afternoon. I had just finished a meal in the GreasePit and was heading to the video store to check out that cashier while I pretend that I could read the back of all the movies. As I waited to cross the street however a dark car pulled over in the bus zone just up the street from me in front of the First Bank of China. Two men jumped out of the back seat and ran quickly into the bank. I was a little suspicious of these people, calling their bank the First Bank of China when it was in America and had only opened two years ago but I was even more suspicious of the two men who had just gotten out of the car because as they walked into the bank they slipped ski masks over their faces.
While I mentally scrolled through the many superheroish options of how to foil the bank robbers’ scheme a stroke of luck went in favor of the good guys. A bus pulled up to use the bus zone forcing our wheelman to reluctantly pull forward an eighth of a block placing me squarely in between the robbers and their getaway car.
I took a quick inventory of what I had with me that could be used as a weapon with which to defeat the adversaries. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my utility belt was grossly under stocked and that throwing my wallet at the criminal’s head was not the most effective option. I would have to rely solely on a physical attack. Given the circumstances I figured there to be three options:
#1: I could use my basic knowledge of football to blast the first perpetrator with a spearing tackle.
Pros: He would never see it coming. No body would expect some scrawny kid to bust such a move.
Cons: I was pretty skinny, no guarantee that I would be able to generate the force to bring him down. Also the second criminal would be easily able to escape.
#2: Taking a lesson from my other childhood hero Hulk Hogan, I could clothes line the crooks knocking them both to the ground and hopefully unconscious.
Pros: Clotheslines are quick and easy. If they were running in the right way, I could even get both with same shot.
Cons: Pro-wrestling is not real.
#3: I could face the other way and when the bank robber came running past me to get to his car I could whip and around quickly and kick his legs out from under him and leave me in the perfect position to launch myself at the second one in a jump kick that would make old Batman proud.
Pros: It was the perfect plan.
Cons: It was almost too perfect.
I got myself in position. There was no way that they could have suspected my motives. I even nonchalantly pulled my cell phone out of my pocket so I could make a fake phone call.
As I rambled on meaninglessly to nobody about some imaginary assignment my mind wandered of to scene of my name in the papers, herald as a hero. Images of explaining my escapades to throngs of swooning girls danced in my head. I could even taste the sweet feeling of cops letting get away with speeding once in a while. The sound of footsteps behind me snapped me out of my delusions of grandeur and into action.
I cannot explain how I knew, but I could feel his presence coming up behind me. With superhero like reflexes I whipped around legging flailing with pinpoint accuracy, right into the arthritic hip of some old Chinese lady. I was too shocked to help her up. I just stood there, absolutely abhorred at myself. People started staring at me. When the second guy came out of the bank, he couldn’t find the getaway car. He joined everybody else in playing a little game of “Everybody stare and laugh at the skinny white kid who just kicked a geriatric”.
In my shame-spawned panic I figured there was at least one guy who I could get to stop staring at me. “It’s over there.” I said pointing to the car. He got in and I walked home a broken, beaten and shamed man never again to dream of being a superhero.
At least not without Jen there to protect me.