Becoming a man.

I work with a real man. His name is John, and he knows Kung Fu. He also knows a ton of stuff about the middle ages and has a suit of armor. He knows how to joust.

Sometimes John will come to work with injuries, and I’ll ask him about them. They’re never much more serious than a black eye or a finger splint. Whenever he says they’re from Kung Fu, I get jealous. Because if you get hurt doing Kung Fu, you’re not really getting hurt - You’re becoming more of a man. It’s like the wrestling team’s cheesy t-shirt said when I was in high school – “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” That’s true if you’re doing Kung Fu, or jousting somebody or beating up a would-be assailant or if some exotic beast bites you. But it’s not true if you slam your finger in a car door or cut yourself shaving. It’s not “weakness leaving the body” if you fall down some stairs because you’re an idiot.

I would like just once to get a nice, manly injury. Because, as yet, I haven’t really gotten any good scars or breaks. I cut my thumb open doing the dishes a long time ago. I got a cast once when I strained the tendons in my hand when I was trying something stupid on a sled. I would love to have a black eye and say, “Oh, it’s from Kung Fu,” because people would be impressed. I would be more of a man if it was from Kung Fu.

I have only gotten one concussion, and that was this past weekend. I was playing football. (I include that detail only because if you choose to tune out here, you’ll at least think I would have gotten a concussion playing football, and that wouldn’t be so bad.) We were running routes and throwing passes and stuff and I got wheezy, so I went to use my inhaler. I inhaled, started to count, and I blacked out. I woke up a few minutes later, lying on the ground and dreaming whatever it is the brain dreams when it ricochets off your skull when you hit your head on the ground. I spent the rest of the night staring at the wall and vomiting. (And thanks to John Youngs for waking me up every two hours.)

I didn’t mind getting a concussion, actually. It sucked for a few hours; especially when I vomited and it came out of my nose. Also, I probably have a wicked bruise beneath my hair, and it’s going to last a while. But I realized that when you have a concussion, everyone waits on you and no one expects anything from you. You have full reign to zone out, misunderstand, and disrespect.

You can bet that if John got a concussion, it would be from fending off a wild bear that came after his woman or something. And I bet that even after his concussion, he would have kung-fu’d the bear into a state of complete submission, and he would have taken it home as his pet.

Asthma-boy concussion isn’t nearly as good as bear-wrasslin’ man concussion.

Someday, I hope to collect some good injuries. Man-making injuries. Pain-cleansing injuries. Baby-saving injuries.