in the 90’s there was a popular r&b song – “age ain’t nuthin’ but a number”
of course it was written by a pedophile (r. kelly) for a teenager (aaliyah) whom he was sleeping with at the time. but that’s not the point. it all started this morning when i cut the grass.
i keep my yard work / house work boots in the garage. partially due to yard shrapnel in the soles, partially due to closet space. in reality, they really should come in and ultimately be treated better. they’re a pair of ill fitting doc martens that i wore for years and just assumed that’s how they were supposed to fit. problem was the guy at atomic city didn’t tell me that british sizes were different than american sizes so when i told him i needed a twelve, that’s what he gave me. little did i know in docs i was actually a size ten uk, so they’re two sizes too big. but they’re narrow, so they’re fine…but almost thirty years later, still tough enough to cut the lawn in.
they don’t make em like they used to.
but when i sat down between cars to put my boots on i noticed the scratches on mr grey’s rims. they’re left over curb checking from the evil, ancient, fucked up curbs of seguin texas. there’s one on one rim though that was from some shitty guy at the tire place dropping it. i told the guys i wanted anybody BUT THIS MOTHERFUCKER touching my car after that because he was anything but apologetic about dropping my shit. he then tried to get in my face, and i threatened to send him first to the hospital, and then back to prison, if he didn’t back the fuck off me.
he did, but kept talking shit. so i kept talking it right back.
he was probably in his mid to late sixties. i realized if it came to it, and i swung on him, i’d look like the dick – because i was in my early forties at the time and he was in his late sixties. it would look like i was beating up an old man.
as a guy, that’s kinda weird to think about…the numbers, age wise, of acceptable violence.
take the kid behind me as i type this. he’s my height. he’s not my musculature, but he’s within ten pounds of my weight. if he got snippy with me, and we got into an argument, and i swung on him the ufc would be pissed ’cause i tried to hit her kid. but if he lost the fight, at that size and age (sixteen), he’d look bad. a guy who hasn’t taken a martial arts lesson in thirty-five years and is three times his age beat a sixteen year old who’s trained MMA for the last few years.
but at the beginning of this, when i was forty-one and he was eight? then i’d totally look like the asshole.
it’s interesting how the cards stack up into what is or is not an acceptable fight card is all i’m saying. like two co-workers i butt heads with occasionally. if i got into it with one, who’s a year older than me but in deplorable shape, it wouldn’t look fair and some would see me as a dick for “picking on him” even though we’re close to the same age and size. a “victory” would be hollow at best and deserves to be in quotes in this sentence.
likewise, the other guy i mouth off against occasionally trains in brazilian ju jitsu and is seventeen years (or so) my junior. i outweigh him by fifty pounds, and most of that ain’t muscle. if he won in a fight against me most would chalk it up as hollow and one sided, and likewise, if i won it would look like a cinematic victory.
fortunately we all just shit talk and move on. it’s why we work well together.
so, like i said, fight numbers are just kinda odd…