|
Throes of Erudition
I once went ten rounds with the champ. Yes, the champ. The Champ.
Granted, it was a shortened ten rounds, because I needed to stop for breath a bit, and accidentally dinged the bell when I took off my shoe, which I do when I need to catch my breath, it's a bit of an old habit that dies hard, I suppose you could say. If you were so inclined. I'd also understand if you weren't willing to comment on it. Or perhaps politely declined with as many words (three or so). But so. The ten rounds, one of them a bit short, due to the aforementioned shoe-taking-off incident and subsequent, also aforementioned, dinging of the bell (don't ask for whom the bell dings, either, because more likely than not you're going to get a stern look from someone who either doesn't appreciate Donne being misused and abused or someone who just gets annoyed very easily. It's also wildly less exciting than the bell tolling, let me tell you, I was there, in both cases.), I was on top of the world. Or maybe not on top of the world but standing on a small canvas mat with a rather grostesquely large person, previously given credit as The Champ, which is somewhere, at any rate. I'm not entirely sure of the altitude.
So anyway there we were (there we was, if this were a 1950s hard-boiled detective novel, in which the detective found himself in the ring with The Champ, which probably didn't happen all that often, though I wouldn't put it past retro-chic William Murphy to do something like that), me and The Champ, and let me tell you, standing up there, him capitalised, me not so, I was scared, and scared to show it. Which made me wonder if being scared twice would act sort of like a double negative and cancel each other out. It did, in a way, as I got to thinking about double negatives, and trying to remember which horrible double negative offences I used to cause in my long and varied schooling career, and I couldn't come up with a one, which I partially attributed to the fear.
It was the best of times, it was also not the greatest of times, as he was trying to punch me, which was fair play to him, as you'd expect to be able to punch the other person if they were standing in a ring with yourself. Couldn't fault him for that, really.
Of course, I'm the type of person who's largely averse to being punched. And really punching people, unless I have to. Or they deserve it. Or they're smaller than me, much much smaller. Which you can't really fault me for, either, I like to think.
Anyway, in the end of it all, due to the fact that I'd not any shoes on and was perspiring like a sweaty pig, the fight was called off, which is all I'd wanted anyway, and we all went home happy with our payday, arm-in-arm with those people we arrived arm-in-arm with, and no one was too bloody, in the end, save a small towel in my corner, and that wasn't blood, but tomato juice, which I don't like, anyway.
disclaimer:
This isn't the week of the big news... it's coming, coming coming...
Are you excited yet?
|
Yer Weekly Horoscopes. Mine.