Prepare to FIGHT, Heathen!

I’ve been in one fist fight in my entire life. I was in 6th grade.

I had just returned home from a brutal day of math Olympics in Mr. Draper's class (8s times tables are a bugger) and was relaxing at home with a root beer in one hand and a Dorito in the other watching Duck Tales. It was blissful. Mid-chomp, my younger sister Ashley came stumbling into the house, wet and muddy with blood trickling down her knees. Through her sobs I was able to understand that a junior high school boy was picking on younger kids and had pushed her into the canal. That’s all I needed to hear. Always a champion for the victim, I bounded out of the house and sprinted up to the canal. Sure enough, there he was. A gigantor of a scruffy lad tossing kids around and laughing. It was on.

Television had taught me a number of constant and finite truths about the universe: A) Good guys never lose. B) The hero gets the girl. C) It never takes more than one bullet to kill a bad guy. D) He-Man is the MASTER of the Universe, GI Joe is the GREATEST American Hero, and Thundercats HO. Finally E) When you punch the bad guy, the bad guy falls down unconscious. Why, then, did my unsuspected right hook draw the faintest trace of blood and not even phase this 8th-grade villain? I’m the good guy! He smiled, chased me down, and proceeded to annihilate my face and body with vicious fists and elbows.

That experience as a youngling taught me something that I have never forgotten. Temper + anger =/= competent fighter. I may be able to talk big and even look imposing if I keep eating hot pockets and stick out my chest a little, but the truth of the matter is that I couldn’t fight my way through a wet napkin with a samurai sword. I prefer music trivia challenges and vocabulary contests to prove the bigger man. You might be able to work me in the ring, but I can say the alphabet backwards faster than you can say it forward. A duel you say?! Fine! My weapon of choice is the Guitar Hero III Les Paul and the field of battle is Cult of Personality, cretin!

I’m no fighter, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t fight. I’ll throw down in fisticuffs for the right cause. Oh yes, I will fight you…..for any of the following causes:

1) If you interrupt me during Duck Tales I will fight you.

2) John Denver is not a country singer. He is a folk GOD. If you say otherwise I will fight you.

3) My mother may be a dance teacher, but that doesn’t mean my SONS will dance. Not until they are 18 and use it as a tool to improve their football skills or get chicks. If you try and put my boy in dance lessons I will fight you.

4) The holocaust happened. If you believe otherwise I will fight you.

5) I love my faith and respect the sacred things of others. If you belittle me or my belief system I will fight you. I recently learned the hard way, allowing someone in a position of power over me to jeer at my religion for 21 months. Never again will that happen. Pearls and swine.

6) If you mess with my family I will fight you. If you wrong my children I will gut you like a fish.

7) If you don’t like Neil Diamond I will fight you. I can understand distaste for ANY of my other favorite artists. Not everyone will enjoy Phish or Devendra Banhart or The Decemberists or Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, and there are valid reasons for not liking them. Simply put, there is NO earthly reason that anyone would dislike Neil. Young and old, male or female, black or white, Neil’s music represents everything good and pure and fun in the universe.

8) If you are a Minnesota Vikings fan I will fight you. I hope Favre has his knee folded back by a golden helmet.

That’s pretty much it. If I can resolve conflict with grammar or video games then I will always opt for those more peaceable means. But if any of the above eight circumstances happen, and Rock Band isn’t available nor Webster’s Dictionary, then the gloves shall come off. I may be beaten, bloodied, and bruised, but I will at least bleed for the cause and my place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.