Seriously. I’m back from a weekend in Cork, where I impressed upon myself, once again, my profound conviction that I should be allowed to arbitrarily slug small children. Over the weekend, I was bizarrely transmogrified into the crabby octagenarian neighbor of my youth - screaming impotent curses and shaking his fist at us neighborhood troublemakers from his front lawn as we rode by on our bikes, chortling.
The reason? Irish parents tend to let their children run wild in cities like gangs of little thuggees. I encountered one of these gangs. I dropped 20 cents, a kid picked it up, then when I tried to take it from him, started playing keep-away from me with it.
As I insanely spluttered and fumed, I thought back to my 80 year old neighbor, now long dead, and it occurred to me that what he had been enacting on his lawn was actually a triumphant, awe-inspiring dance of human self-denial, like a marionette raging against the puppeteer, who was commanding him to Kill, Kill the punks.
But frankly, I’m with the puppeteer - man, it would be sweet to just deliver one resounding hay-maker to a ten year old punk’s jaw. Because, really, what other option do you have when a kid tries to make a fool of you? It isn’t like you can be wittily derisive to someone who still thinks picking boogers is funny. That leaves karate chopping them in the thorax.
Because, really, what other option do you have when a kid tries to make a fool of you?
Walk away.
Get inside the joke and laugh with him. “Dagnabbit! I haven’t played a good game of keep away since I was a youngster. Thanks, little whippersnapper, for reminding me of the halcyon days of youth!”
Grumble, “Goddamn kids!” and vent your frustration on some web forum.
Do you think that such a chop, even if properly executed, would make any difference either? From what I remember of my extreme youth, violence was less effective than, say, embarassment. Hence a witty retort in front of my friends would have more impact than physical violence. On the other hand, a kid who as you say “still thinks picking boogers is funny” probably wouldn’t gain anything of your values from either route. Why treat kids any different from the brain damaged just because you have different values? They’re just frikkin kids.
Yeah, and a frikkin kid who steals someone’s money deserves a frikkin four fingered behavioural adjustment. Slap away, Dr Crypt! Why, back in my day, adult males were something you didn’t aim to get pissed off. Or if you did, you had to make sure there was a bike ready and an escape route planned. Kids nowadays are fearless- they know that any threats of violence are a bluff[color=darkred]. Bring back that sense of fear,[/color] I say.
(Oh, did I say that out loud? :wink: )
Get inside the joke and laugh with him. “Dagnabbit! I haven’t played a good game of keep away since I was a youngster. Thanks, little whippersnapper, for reminding me of the halcyon days of youth!”
oh yes, do this. Make sure to pronounce “dagnabbit” and “halcyon” correctly or else you will simply be mocked further.
Now I feel like that Jack Benny of child-beating Micks. So just to clarify: it was more of a pride thing than anything else, and since all these euro coins look alike until you get up close to them, and since euros go up to 2 euro denominations (roughly two dollars - in an easily lost coin), &c.
Either way: do you suppose that if, for example, I were allowed by law to take that child’s bovine face in my hands and then repeatedly jam it into my taut, upward-jerking kneecap until he looked like Joseph Merrick, that he would have ever risked that madcap misadventure over 20 cents?
Bub, referring to Ireland as “The Sceptered Island” to your average Irishman is likely to earn you a three-dimensional re-enactment of the above Joseph Merrick gag. Then again, I loved it because my sympathy’s with the British. I’m hard pressed to sympathize with a country in their struggle against British tyranny when they are gleefully lapping up the tyranny of mobile phone companies charging 60 cents per minute in a country where there are more mobiles than people. And the mobile phone companies don’t even have guns! Hail, Britannia!
Bub, referring to Ireland as “The Sceptered Island” to your average Irishman is likely to earn you a three-dimensional re-enactment of the above Joseph Merrick gag.
To be fair, maybe Bub wasn’t trying to quote Shakespeare. After all, I’m sure there’s a scepter somewhere on Ireland. Or at the very least a stick with something shiny at one end.
