A History of Awesome

I am not a violent person by nature.

I am, however, a violent person by imagination.

This makes very little sense. Allow me to explain. I have never been in a real fight in my life. Josh and I always wrestled quite a bit, but it never really came to blows. And I am, by nature, a very meek, peaceful, conflict-avoiding person. But in my head, I am quite often pretty vicious.

I'm not exactly sure when it started, but it normally pops up when I'm walking through crowded spaces like airports or the dining hall back at Drake. I'll just be walking along, minding my own business, then all of a sudden, in my mind I'll clothesline someone or tip their tray up so their food gets all over their shirt.

Some of you may be reeling from this. Let me reassure you by saying that it is never done maliciously. It is always done hilariously.

There's something kind of funny about imagined violence, in the sense that it's almost cartoonish and the person never gets hurt. That's the kind of violence that happens in my mind, say when I imagine that I just did a 360 with my rolling luggage and hurled it, a la an Olympic hammer throw, into the face of that guy in the green shirt.

It strikes me that no matter how I try to explain this, I come off looking like a sociopath. So allow me to say that I got Josh to start doing it too. So now we mostly do it to each other and enjoy announcing that fact. We'll just be walking along in some city and you'll hear, "Hey Tim, I just pushed you over the side of the bridge." Sometimes Josh will get so excited about it, he'll just start laughing and bouncing around in his seat and say, "You'll never guess what I just did to you!"

(It should be noted at this point that when presented with a potential victim holding a lunch tray, Josh will always hit straight down, whereas I will hit up on the tray. He says his way doesn't give them a chance to recover. I wonder what this difference says about us, developmentally. Someone should write a paper.*)

Anyway, today I was walking out of Jewel with a milk jug in my hand. It was a full gallon, so it had some heft to it. I used it to hit a dude in the face, then launched it over the fence and it landed right on a girl's head.**

It was all cartoony, people. And all hilarious.



*I find that I end most of my psuedo-intellectual thoughts like this. It's kind of my "Well, we all have stories" for intellectual things. And by "someone," I never mean me. My paper-writing days are over, thank you.

**She crumpled to the ground, but only saw stars and cartoon birds. No permanent damage. Cartoon violence, guys. I'm not evil, I promise.

P.S. Somewhere in this great world, Jacob Eyers senses a disturbance in the Force. He then immediately experiences an overwhelming desire to move to the West Coast and follow this tour from beginning to end. Man, who remembers the Crouching Fish, Hidden Finger tour? I do.