that's all right! that's okay! we're gonna work for you one day!! .... .... wait.... what?

where most folks would be happy to yell "dee-FENSE! dee-FENSE!!" i come from the sort of family that finds it amusing to cheer thusly - «impede their progression! impede their progression!» boy howdy. we are witty AND fun to be with. not pretentious at all, at all.

back in the day, i played a bit of two-hand touch football. and by played i mean they let me be all-time center which is basically a lame-ass way of preventing my running & telling on them for not letting me play at all. of course, two-hand touch is precisely that and doesn't involve tackling per se but there will be some instances of getting knocked to the ground. besides the two-hand touch there was plenty of smear the queer in which i would never be the queer b/c i was a mite too easy to smear, so i was generally a smearer, not a smearee. it feels pretty good to jump on the pile when in real life you are one of the weaklings. one place i am not a weakling is on the futbol pitch where i am either a force to be reckoned with or a disaster waiting to happen - neither one a precisely weak - but either one typically landing hard on the ground with shoulder, hip, or knee at least once or so per match. yes, there is usually an opponent involved. i mean, it's not like i spontaneously solo tumble. well, you know, not usually....

the bottom line here is that i know what it feels like to hit the packed earth. i have that context. after i wrecked the corolla [another story for another day] when the dr asked me what i experienced, i remember telling him it wasn't that hard of a hit - it was like being tackled when you're playing football in the backyard.

but i never wore pads, not even play costume pads little boys wear before they are old enough for pop warner. so one thing i don't know what it feels like is to hit the ground with pads on - or to hit someone else like that, hard, on purpose, with the armour on. watching bamalama vs tejas the other night and of course you see it all the time in football - durr - but for some reason just then it really hit me [see what i did there?] how these boys are all shelled-up like beetles. when they hit, sometimes they roll a couple times or something. wonder what that would be like, to fly through the air and then hit the ground and roll a couple times inside your own personal beetle-shell?

i have worn a helmet, for the harley riding, so i know those freakers are heavy and they do make you feel invincible in what is probably a very dangerous way. i'm sure it's the same in football - all shelled up like a beetle and knocking into and off of and around and through the other players in their personal beetle shells. you know they hit harder all suited up like that. i heard somewhere that there are more head injuries in american football than in australian rules football which is played unpadded & unhelmeted.

there's something ironic about being more likely to get hurt when you're better protected. i could brilliantly tie this into the hard-shell suitcase metaphor from yesterday, but then, what fun is it if i give away all the answers, eh?