Friday, March 04, 2005
There was no burning bush, but there's one time that I thought I might start believing in God. I thought I might give it a shot.
I was walking through the woods near my house with my friend Michael Beaton. We had been lobbing stones at various woodland creatures making sure to miss by a wide margin each time. It was easy to miss by a wide margin when you had what little leaguers deemed "a rubber arm". The one time I pitched in a baseball game I gave up 3 walks, struck one out (he must have had vertigo), and induced a pop up. I suppose I had an ERA of 0.00, but let's not fool ourselves here, I sucked and not even in a fantastic sense. I sucked in the most mediocre way. This is why I felt confident in my ability to miss woodland creatures.
After several misses I spied a squirrel and I decided to make it somewhat interesting. I'm not really sure what a squirrel ever did to me that made me want to knock his body off a tree branch. A squirrel has never turned me over to the Pontius Pilate, murdered by parents in front of me in cold blood, or stolen my baby. Squirrels have usually left me alone and I in turn them. It's worked out well.
So I go from being Tommy Chong to Tommy John with my pitches and I can see the rock hitting the squirrel before it even reaches its target. I'm not sure what the fuck the squirrel can see but it's not moving and it's just staring straight at me. I can picture the squirrel unmoving on the ground, its fur stained with blood, its hands curled up and then me burying it under leaves, hoping noone finds out about the bad thing I had done. Trying to keep my friend quiet, covering his mouthing, punching his arm...
And the rock misses. The squirrel is on top of a tree branch, the rock narrowly goes under. Crisis averted.
It's not the hand of god, it's not even dumb luck, it's my terrible throwing arm.
Years later my highschool sweetheart would be run down on the night of her prom. She was killed by a drunk driver. That drunk driver was a squirrel.
I wish I had a better throwing arm.
I was walking through the woods near my house with my friend Michael Beaton. We had been lobbing stones at various woodland creatures making sure to miss by a wide margin each time. It was easy to miss by a wide margin when you had what little leaguers deemed "a rubber arm". The one time I pitched in a baseball game I gave up 3 walks, struck one out (he must have had vertigo), and induced a pop up. I suppose I had an ERA of 0.00, but let's not fool ourselves here, I sucked and not even in a fantastic sense. I sucked in the most mediocre way. This is why I felt confident in my ability to miss woodland creatures.
After several misses I spied a squirrel and I decided to make it somewhat interesting. I'm not really sure what a squirrel ever did to me that made me want to knock his body off a tree branch. A squirrel has never turned me over to the Pontius Pilate, murdered by parents in front of me in cold blood, or stolen my baby. Squirrels have usually left me alone and I in turn them. It's worked out well.
So I go from being Tommy Chong to Tommy John with my pitches and I can see the rock hitting the squirrel before it even reaches its target. I'm not sure what the fuck the squirrel can see but it's not moving and it's just staring straight at me. I can picture the squirrel unmoving on the ground, its fur stained with blood, its hands curled up and then me burying it under leaves, hoping noone finds out about the bad thing I had done. Trying to keep my friend quiet, covering his mouthing, punching his arm...
And the rock misses. The squirrel is on top of a tree branch, the rock narrowly goes under. Crisis averted.
It's not the hand of god, it's not even dumb luck, it's my terrible throwing arm.
Years later my highschool sweetheart would be run down on the night of her prom. She was killed by a drunk driver. That drunk driver was a squirrel.
I wish I had a better throwing arm.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 9:34 AM 
