tclary’s BodyBlog

My buddies are evil.  They’re evil and they must be stopped.

There I was, all unassuming and minding my own damned business and with no warning whatsoever they dragged my sorry butt to that most threatening of Uncomfort Zones: the sports bar.

I hate the sports bar.  I hate it.  And I don’t care if you read this and immediately go to, ‘ha ha ha ha what a little girl ha ha ha why, we’re real men and we like sports bars!’  I don’t care because I think you’re lying.

This stupid places drive me nuts for a all kinds of seemingly unrelated reasons.  First of all (little known and oft-forgotten fact coming here) I have hearing loss.  And no not the ‘pardon me? would you speak up a bit?’ kind.  Oh no.  Years before the whole Sports Bar Clog Dance From Hell they dragged my sorry butt to the mountains to shoot a gun.  And by ‘gun’ I mean a .357.  In a canyon.  Canyons echo.  With no earplugs.  Earplugs make a big difference.  My ears are (I promise I am not making this up) still ringing.  Not a big giant deal except for the fact that we’re talking about 1987.  So a few things on the hearing loss:  I’m not luxuriating in the pouty sultry design of your mouth when I stare at it.  I’m reading your lips, you nutjob.  I have to or I will think I’ve heard what you said and reply with something brilliant like, ‘…and why the hell would I want to change my oil with orange doughnuts.’  And, yes, that one really happened and they still don’t let me forget it.  Like I said, evil.

And yes I know the sports bar is so loud you can hear it all the way across town but the weird thing about my hearing loss is that it also did some weird thing to the ears such that loudness borders painful.  

Also, though the ringing is a part of my daily diet, and though it has more or less become the New Normal, every once in a while my ears will whack the hell out and the ringing will Go To Eleven.  And I’ll wince and put a hand to my ear and wait for it to pass so that I can get to whatever it was you were boring shit to stone with.

Sports bar.

So we go to the sports bar because some game was on and it seemed to hold heaven and earth in the balance and if we don’t get there Right Now and wear all kinds of sports jerseys it’s curtains for the free world.  So we go.  And though I couldn’t care less about the Stanley…Bowl…thing…or whatever the hell it is, I realize that these places serve food and I’m good with it because now I want a cheeseburger.  And I happen to know that these places do not skimp on that kind of meal because it would not work out well for them to serve anything less than a cow to Men who are watching The Game.  Could you imagine serving something girly?  It would be the food industry equivalent to having to change the tire on a subcompact car and then driving to the nearest station to get the flat fixed.  And if you’ve ever done that, and if you’re a man, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I’d like to meet the pale, friendless virgin who designed the Barbie doll spare tire on those damn cars.  Why not just put a glitter pinwheel on it while you’re at it and let me drive down the highway with a big pink bow in my hair?

So there I am about to finish off the stalked prey in the form of  Cheeseburger that to this day brings tears to my eyes it was so awesome…

…and then this dude at the bar starts talking to me.

About the game.

And I freeze like a deer caught in headlights because I have no idea how one talks about The Game.  And my friends, in perfect friendly fashion have abandoned me to my complete inadequacy and are at the other end of the bar all amped up and high-fiving and screaming and doing that Hug From The Side thing we have to do lest the rest of the world think we wear dresses at night.

So I look at the television emitting enough light and sound to signal passing aircraft and force my eyes to focus and decipher all the colors and the sounds and the graphics and the zip-zing-flash that’s making my cerebral cortex react like it’s saturated in enough LSD to bring a clydesdale to its knees.  And in the process The Game fades to black so that The Commercial can air.  The Commercial: a guy shaving and it’s awesome because there’s steel-blue light all over the place and he’s buff and he’s tan and it’s awesome and there’s at least half a dozen women and it’s awesome and the music makes Van Halen come off like The Wiggles and it’s awesome and they’re all swooning and caressing his now very smooth yet still very manly chiseled jaw and I’m royally pissed because I never have this experience when I shave.

But that doesn’t last very long because, for God’s sake, The Game is back on and I realize he’s asked me something pertinent to The Game and I have no idea what in the hell he just asked me.

And before you think I’m some Big Fat Wussy Girl (no offense, big fat wussy girls) I’ll make sure you appreciate the fact that I am wicked strong and can put your lame ass on the floor having knocked you in the head three times before you realize you’re not staring at the ceiling.  And by not staring at the ceiling I mean you’re unconscious.  That’s how fast and hard I can hit you.  But I wouldn’t, for I am kind and benevolent and not at all unaware of the power in my punch.

So get off my back.

My friends, the alert reader will recall, are evil.  Because they have left me there entirely unequipped to navigate this minefield.  I simply did not grow up playing a lot of sports.  I can not even run and dribble at the same time.  I just never learned it.  Football?  I can’t even keep all the maneuvers straight.  Clueless.  But when they make me play I rule because I run like hell and no one can catch me.  I am lightening.  I am swift.  I am the wind.  I am running for my life because I am scared beyond expelling my bowels.  Fear has won my team many a game.

God, on the other hand, in heavenly favor, has granted my freak mind a boon in the form of knowing exactly how to answer the rhetorical question Damn Did You Just See What Giant Athlete Just Did?!  And this was what I learned in a split second of brilliant understanding:

All you have to do is (a) swear and (b) agree.

So I go, ‘Hell (a) yeah!’ (b)

And he goes, ‘Damn! He didn’t pull that crap last season!’

And I go, ‘Yeah! (b) Last season!  Hell (a) no!’  And I have no idea how in the hell Spring has anything to do with whatever Giant Athlete just did because, first of all, I have no idea what the hell Giant Athlete just did.  All I know is that bodies and limbs and some sort of ball just got knocked to kingdom come and there’s spit and grass and maniacal responses from announcers and then…

…my buddies are laughing there asses off at me and have been watching me talking back to this other dude and have come over to ask me what I’ve been saying.  And I tell them and they laugh even harder because they realize it works.

And then they ask me something else, because they know my freak brain because, even though they’re evil and deserve painful death for doing this to me lol they really are cool and they’d beat up anyone who gave me shit but not before I’d put your lame ass on the floor having knocked you in the head three times before you realize you’re not staring at the ceiling.  And by not staring at the ceiling I mean you’re unconscious.  That’s how fast and hard I can hit you.  But I wouldn’t, for I am kind and benevolent.

They ask me what I was REALLY thinking while I was watching the Stanley Bowl Cup thing and I tell them, and what I thought was laughter before transmogrifies right then and there to gut splitting laughter and mockery because what I was really thinking is ‘…how in the hell are they going to get those stains out?’

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.