reader mail: fighting & me

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Longtime distinguished Stank troll Marta asks, "You must get punched a lot." Which isn't really a question, come to think of it, so much as a diagnosis. Screw you too, Marta.

It happens. It hasn't happened in years, though. Living in Metamuville helps. Geriatrics may shake their fists at you for being on your own lawn, but they don't actually hit you.

Not counting a violent drunken shove at the Super Bowl, the last two times I've been punched were 1) in my right ear 2) by drunks from whose verbal abuses I did not wilt. I don't understand the ear thing. Maybe they were aiming for my face but were that drunk.

Outside of sports, I don't start altercations. And I don't finish them, either. Thanks to my older brother, I can take a punch to the face. Also thanks to my brother, I don't have a flight reflex. When you're punched every day of your entire childhood, it becomes part of the background noise of your existence. So someone will pop me one, and it hurts like hell, and then I look at them quizzically and go "Really?" This usually enrages the person more, but my confusion and response are genuine.