This is the Deal
They say knowing is half the battle.
I've found, in my limited experience as a squire, that knowing where the battle is is also a pretty good start, worth at least 33% of the battle.
So that leaves an even, well, 33 plus 50... that's 17% left unaccounted for. And, as I couldn't, at the time, find the battle, I was less than concerned about that 17%. My knight, the guy I was squiring for, he insisted on knowing, at all times, 100% of the battle. "Focus," he would say. Did the knowing 100% of the battle make up any of the knowing that would be half the battle? If so, how did the math work on that one?
I hated squiring some days.
Other days, it was all right. Got to travel. Hell, got to travel a lot if you got lost and couldn't find the battle to save your life.
On the other hand (the hand that didn't mind missing battles - the first hand was the one that felt bad about missing battles for which your big boss had trained, and trained you for far too many hours), it was a nice day, that day, the birds were singing, sun was shining, and I had an apple.
Before I started squiring, if you were to ask me what the other 17% would be, I would have said, right away, "Swords. Lances. Jabbing people from horseback." That's what gets most of the kids. Hell, that's what got me. And I'm no kid. Sure, I suffer from severe lack of facial hair and it seems that no matter how I cut my hair I look like a very tall twelve year old boy. The Red Sox jerseys, with my favorite knight's name embroidered on the back that I have a penchant for wearing probably don't help, either. And that was before I became a squire to Belichick of the Red Sox. One of the premier knights of our generation.
But once I joined up, I found it was slightly less glamorous. Lots of sweat. A whole lot of dirt. Dirty laundry, more than you'd ever seen in your life. And pigs, which I thought were completely unrelated, but hey ho. Live and learn, I suppose.
There was a small rise, over which, my gut was telling me, I would probably find the battle. I decided to take a break, lean against a nearby tree, eat my apple, and think things over. I was hoping to be nicknamed "The Thoughtful Squire" or "The Ruminating Squire" or something else, maybe "Squire, the Wise." I don't know. I wasn't picky, I just wanted people to appreciate the cerebral aspects of my job, and not just focus on the grime and sweat, smelly socks and pigs. It would take the knowing and knowledge bit to that whole other level, really kick it up a notch. It would bring understanding to the game. And still fit neatly into the 100% with which we were working.
I let out a slight belch from the finished apple, and walked to the top of the rise. I stood there, hoping I was silhouetted against the sun, towering over the field of play, where there stood a whole lot of people, milling about in the middle of an extremely mucky field. Wait a minute, that wasn't right. They shouldn't have been just standing about. These events were usually a cacophony; noise and violence to three of the five senses. And they were all standing there.
I could make out Belichick in the middle, talking to one of the guys from the other side. When he noticed me, he started stalking towards the hill, pointing at me and shouting, "Oy! Boy! Where's the pig!"
Ah, there was the other 17%: remembering to bring a change of clothes and a spare pig. Damn and blast, eh?
Summary
disclaimer:
Well, we here at Sane Magazine wish you and yours the very merriest of holidays.
As we're stranded in the Sane Magazine offices in California for the holiday season (due to impending legal action which may or may not affect our ability to bring any more farm animals from the United States to France), we plan on spending a snowless, almost obscene Christmas in California. Where we're all still allowed to walk around in short sleeves.
We hope you enjoyed one of our newer writers taking a stab at it, and we'll see you again next week, quite possibly on a new laptop or something someone's bought you.
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