War has always been a touchy subject with my family.
One of my earliest memories is an unfortunate incident with my sister. I had shuffled the deck, eyed about half of it and given it to her, when she refused to take her half.
“”Bullshit,”” she said, “”your half’s bigger.””
I explained to her that it didn’t matter, that war itself was unfair, and after a few minutes one of us would have a bigger half anyways.
“”But, at least that person would have earned that half.””
“”Earned?!”” I asked.
You don’t earn your bigger half in war; you just draw it. There’s no slapping involved, no quick drawing necessary; it’s just a matter of having high cards at the time, and in the event of a war, having high cards in the future. But this logic did not carry over to her, and she forced me to redeal, painstakingly dealing out 26 cards each. It took away some precious moments of my life that I will never get back, moments that I could have spent thinking about other moments of my life that I will never get back, like when I rented “”Maid in Manhattan”” after a night of bloody marys on the premise that I’d find “”the worst movie in Long’s Drugs.””
I’ve told this story in response to friends’ inquiries about my feelings on war, but they insisted that this isn’t what they meant. After careful consideration, I realized they were talking about another war altogether, which I like to refer to as a thumb war.
I remember my first thumb war with my girlfriend. We were sitting on her couch, discussing whether or not you can smell sneezes. My position was that sneezes have smells, and that everybody’s sneezes smelled the same, while she claimed that you couldn’t smell sneezes. She is clearly wrong because I’ve smelled many a sneeze, and I’ve even gone as far as to smell other people’s sneezes, which, though disgusting as hell, smell the same as my sneezes.
Trying to be a good sport about her being so obviously wrong, I suggested a thumb war. She agreed, and assumed the thumbs-up position with her right hand. I wrapped my fingers around hers, said the customary, “”One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war,”” while moving my thumb opposite hers, and then the minute the word “”war”” had left my mouth, she started twisting her arm like a Thai hooker on speed. I quickly lost the first game out of pure shock.
“”What, in the fuck, was that?”” I demanded.
“”It’s not against the rules,”” she retorted.
“”Of course it’s not in the rules! Why the hell would your arm and elbow be in the rules in a thumb war?! Everybody knows that you don’t move your god damn wrist in a thumb war.””
“”Look, it’s not against the rules, all right?””
“”All right.”” I conceded and put out my hand. We started the count and right when it was over I punched her in the boob with my left hand, and as she screamed some things I can’t print here, I covered her thumb with mine and won the second battle. Me getting punched in the balls was the tiebreaker.
Let’s face it, people do get hurt in wars, no matter what side you’re on. Take the war on cavities I’ve been fighting most of my life. Sometimes, when it’s really late and I want to pass out, whether or not to brush my teeth is a difficult decision. The amount of wrist effort is considerable, and no matter how much masturbation I conduct purely to strengthen my wrist, the fact remains that I’m one lazy s.o.b.
I even have an electric toothbrush; all I would really have to do is stand there and hold the damn thing for two minutes, but I’m sure we’ve all been there. Sometimes standing is just too difficult. A little while back, one of my friends had to have surgery on his ass because he supported this idea too much.
I remember once I was taking this survey in high school that helped you calculate when you were going to die. I think the primary purpose was to discourage smoking, but the part that really stuck in my mind was the one that asked if you sat in a chair more than eight hours a day. At first I marked “”no,”” but then I really thought about it and I can’t recall the last day where I didn’t sit in a chair less than eight hours. In between moving furniture and disassembling IKEA lamps with allen wrenches, I would sit in the U-Haul on my leather chair and think about what it would be like to sit in my new home.
I have really been fighting a war against standing, and it is sort of a joint conflict with the war against the sun, in which I’m currently being supported by my good buddy, shade. He really kicks the sun’s ass when they duke it out.