On being the better man

I hope you all feel lucky, because I had a very serious injury while laboriously attempting to chop up a butternut squash last night, and my index finger is causing me considerable distress. I'm thinking of calling AFLAC. In spite of my disability, I find myself stranded on this icy Thursday and I thought perhaps telling you all a story would serve me better than my current activity of shoveling Mike and Ikes, (Tropical Typhoon), into my mouth while checking my empty email inbox over and over.

Let's face it. As we go about our daily lives, we often encounter people who "just have it coming." The douche-bag*(see bottom) who cuts you in line at your local blockbuster, or swipes the last snow shovel from your grandma, or the Biff in the Ed Hardy bejeweled long sleeve t-shirt who loudly points out the unattractive fat girl just trying to get a fucking drink.

We all have to deal with these people and sometimes, just sometimes, we are tempted to take our sweet revenge, especially when a tantalizing opportunity to teach them their lesson presents itself. But two jerks don't make a right, and we should really be striving to turn the other cheek, so to speak, mainly because the cost of taking such action can often outweigh the benefits of your savory vengeance. Case in point.

When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to get to go to summer camp most years. I loved camp--the teachers of the school year are replaced by horny college students who have little interest in your actual obedience and you get to swim and ride horses. At church camp, however, there are sometimes those counselors who are not cool, and in fact are the nosy moms of campers who wear really high cut jeans and look disapproving at least 75% of the time.

In addition, kids don't just magically lose their inherent meanness after memorial day and twelve is a terrible age for a girl who didn't mature at a freakish rate because of the massive amounts of growth hormones consumed in our chicken nuggets. At the same time, twelve is also a notorious year for BOY CRAZY, during which the girls develop ridiculous crushes on little boys who want nothing more than to throw dirt at each other and play with GI JOES. This odd mismatch causes a lot of problems.

Anyways, there was this dreamy boy I went to camp with during the summer of twelve, and by dreamy I mean he had a mysteriously shaved head and was the all around badass of the capture the flag course. I was stricken. Thus, you can imagine my excitement when before chapel one day, he called me over to talk to him! I was floating on my flip flops. Unfortunately, my happiness quickly turned to horror, as he began to recite a sonnet he had composed in my honor, to the uproarious belly laughs of my peers (Yet again):

"Roses are red,

Violets are black,

I'm sorry your chest,

is as flat as your back"

Aside from being confused about the obviously false statement that violets are in fact black, and not violet, I was humiliated. I looked down in misery at the great plane that was the front of my kool-aid stained t-shirt, and promptly ran away and cried.

So being young and naive, when the opportunity for justice presented itself, I seized on the reins ands whipped those ponies until the wagon wheels fell off.

The monkey bars are a true test of playground prowess at almost any age. Only the strong survive. The unfortunate incident of the chapel poetry reading was old news by camp standards by the time I found myself playing on the same piece of playground equipment as my clever lyricist. We were all taking turns climbing on the top of the monkey bars and leaping mightily to the ground. Yet again I was at the mercy of the cruel man-child, who had posted up directly in front of me, and refused to let me pass or jump off.

I had had enough of these shenanigans. Luckily my flat chest allowed my arms free movement and I flung them out and shoved the would-be poet. To my horror, he lost his balance and toppled over the side of the monkey bars. I wish I could say that was the end of the story, but this particular set of monkey bars had an additional pull up bar, about halfway down the side of it. So adding to my dismay, and most assuredly his dismay, his body managed to flail its way to position one leg on either side of said pull-up bar, firmly lodging it into his fledgling testicles. Gravity then took its final course, and he landed directly on this wrist in the dirt, as children circled laughing, and little tattle tales flew like the wind to give me up to the authorities.

Did this kid deserve it? Well, he definitely deserved some form of punishment, but I'm not sure he deserved a trip to the hospital at the tender age of twelve to have his business extracted from the body cavity. And as a result of my violent action, the previously mentioned super high pants wearing mom counselor attempted to convince the camp director that I was a sociopath and needed to be sent home. (Apparently I threw the kickball too aggressively as well). Perhaps worst of all, I was forever more known at summer camp, even in the following years, as the girl who ripped little jimmy's balls off.

So before you get back at someone for their insolent behavior, consider being the better man. It may save you an embarrassing nick name.

** I just learned that spell check does not accept douchebag as a proper English word, but you may become grammatically appropriate by cleverly placing a hyphen between the bag and the douche.)