The Trapper Keeper® Affair

Let's dance, dickweed. – Ron Burgundy

I hate confrontation. I am the biggest puss on God's green earth when it comes to a fight. If I were a burger, I'd be a Big Mac with no meat or onions and light Mac sauce on the side. Strangely, the desire to stay out of a fight has nearly driven me to fisticuffs. I had a drunk friend itching for a bar brawl once, and in my femininity, I threatened to open up a can of Acme brand whoopass on him if he didn't calm the fuck down. Somehow that situation worked in my favor.

I will avert my eyes at the slightest provocation; pink bunny rabbits and calico kittens frequently best me in staring contests. Jimmy Carter and Ghandi don't have shit on me when it comes to peacekeeping. I have run from field mice and brooding-hens. The day Hades unleashes from the volcanic bowels of the earth and surfaces in sub arctic Newfoundland, I will assert myself. You get the idea?

I have witnessed my dad, at 5'6" and 130 pounds (in the throes of the flu with a 101 degree temperature and a ravaging case of the green apple splatters) reduce a guy who looked like Mike Tyson to the appearance of a 3 year old with Steve Buscemi under her bed. Do you remember Steven Segal's character in Hard to Kill, the one where his name is Nico and they keep shooting him a new asshole every five minutes and then he comes out and clothes-lines the shit out of everybody? One hard look from my dad could make that dude piss himself and dance a jig while chanting "I have a vagina in my pretty little pink panties" over and over again with his thumb in his hind-end. Pops was the meanest beaner in Dallas and no man of any size could instill fear in him. He was stupid-brave, and goddammit, people respond to that. He could scare dudes out of a fight because he wasn't afraid to get his ass handed to him.

So what happened to me? Well, you won't believe me, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.
I had a friend named Carlos who lived across the street when I was in elementary school. My little brother and I would walk home with him everyday. We started playing this little game on our walks where Carlos would hit my kid brother or something, and I would come to his rescue, giving Carlos a nice frog on the bicep in retaliation. It was friendly kid crap, but apparently I packed a potent prod because Carlos started getting a little squirrelly about taking the lashing. The punch heard 'round Oak Cliff came the day when Carlos hugged his Trapper Keeper® to his chest and lowered his head in anticipation of his deltoid damaging roundhouse, slightly opening his stance in the process. As a result, the wallop alit squarely on his jaw, breaking the final tattered tendril of tendon holding in his first loose molar. The dislodged dentin took flight, never to return to the hands of its former owner. They say if you love something…..
Carlos, in the typical response for a boy his age getting bitch-slapped by his best bro, opened up the waterworks. I was mortified. The realization that if I'd been serious about hurting this kid I could have put him in traction hit me like Tanya Harding's common-law husband. I had been given a power that could cause harm. I must never unleash this power upon the earth, for my fellow man would know suffering beyond the limits of his endurance. I must humble myself, pussify, and walk away from potential conflict at the risk of my very manhood coming into question. The problem is, it stopped being a conscious decision and became my natural response. Since the most basic human (if not mammalian) instinct is self-preservation, I have become the denominator in the fight/flight fraction.
Carlos is probably pumping iron in prison and trying to remember my last name.