January 17, 2004 - 10:38 a.m.
I punched a small child yesterday.
I am not a violent person. But yet, it happened. Well, punch is a strong word. It was more of a slug.
But before I get to that story, here's something funny: lately, Laurie and I have taken to playing DDR for hours every night at the movie theater. Being there so long and in such a high-traffic area, you tend to get the same questions over and over. The most frequent, by far, is: "How do you know what you're doing?" (#2 is "How long have you been doing this?") Creeping up the charts was "Did you see that thing on TV?" but we had no idea what anybody was talking about.
Turns out MTV did some show about the people who play video games, with an entire segment about DDR players. Probably tournament folk and freestylers, if I had to guess. "You're not that bad, though," said housemate Eric. "These people's ENTIRE LIVES are DDR."
I laughed then, but on my way to dinner with Laurie I realized something. What have I ever been doing this week? I go to work, I play DDR, I go to sleep.
Okay, so it's not my life. Just a good third of it.
Anyway, about me assaulting children. See, there's this kid, and his name is Alex. I am pretty terrible at guessing ages but I would be very surprised if he was more than eleven years old. Or perhaps a very, very short thirteen. I'm not sure what this kid's deal is; he hangs out in the movie theater lobby a lot, but I've never seen him with any sort of parent figure. Since we're often in the movie theater lobby, we often run into him.
And yesterday I ran into him. With my fist.
See, most of the time Alex is okay. If there's nobody around, he is almost nice. But he has Attention Deficit Disorder. Not THAT kind, the other kind, where he doesn't get enough attention. So when a lot of other kids show up, he decides to be a brat. Incidentally, I am still glad I will never, ever be made to experience grades five through ten again.
It's really freaky when human beings who appear to be tiny children use naughty words, like "pussy." Even though those humans are probably in Jr. High and have heard new naughty words that you don't even know. But Alex was trash talking everyone near the DDR machine, and boasting of his skills. None of the other children seemed to be friends of his, and my guess would be that it is due to Alex having not yet learned the fact that the more you talk about how cool you are, the less cool you become. Whenever people start to ignore him, his Attention Deficit Disorder flares up and he does stupid crap.
Until yesterday, the dumbest thing he'd done was shine a flashlight in my eye. I'm glad I have Laurie to play DDR with, because his favorite trick is to flail around noisily on the unused pad while you are playing. But last night while I was attempting to perfect one of my favorite songs, he stood next to the screen and faced me and did a dance. That was distracting, but I could ignore it.
Alex does not like to be ignored, so he started to slowly dance in front of the screen.
You do not interrupt a man while he is attempting to flawlessly complete a video game level. And you certainly don't interfere with his woman's game.
So, feeling a bit like a bully in the arcade of a bad 80's movie, I punched Alex in the shoulder before he could make his way over to Laurie's side.
It wasn't hard. I don't think I have it in me to actually hurt anybody. Just enough to let him know that he had crossed the border of Annoyingland into Intolerableville. I don't believe in hitting your kids. But parents, please teach your children proper arcade ettiquette, so that somebody else does not have to hit them for you.
Alex looked surprised, then confused, and then he said, "Owwwwwwwwwww." But it was not convincing; it was not the "ow" of a child in pain, it was the "ow" of a child in a bandage commercial. Plus he looked around while he said it to see who noticed. Nobody did, so he ran over to a bunch of kids near the payphones and started making fun of them.
I didn't have much time for remorse, because after the game had ended, the player next in line stepped up, put his quarters in, looked me in the eye, and said, "I'm so glad you punched that kid."
Turns out Alex had been annoying everybody the whole evening. So, in a way, I am a hero. Everyone was really nice to me after that. It's the same lesson I learned from the movie Back To The Future: if you punch the right person at the right time, you make friends!
