(*Note, this work has corresponding pictures found at the bottom of the post)
I once heard someone say, “If I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all. This is, to put it gently, bullshit. I would rather have no luck just for the fact that if I didn’t have any luck then anything that happens would be owed exclusively to my own effort. Not to some anonymous lady luck who, according to the most interesting man in the world (as purported by beer commercials) is the type of woman who is only around when you are winning. In the world of misfortune and bad get rich quick scams I’m known as Nicholas ‘Rock Slash Super’ Starr and luck recently seemed to go out of its way to screw me over, while smiling kindly on my associate Samuel ‘Danger’ Warbucks.
The evening seemed like any other. We found ourselves in one of the few places in which I am almost always unquestionably irked to be in the mere vicinity of, a place that I somehow found myself in despite my already shaky relationship with lady luck. Somehow Danger had managed to piece together a business proposition that was so intriguing that I fought off every instinct that I possessed and agreed to meet him at a casino. More specifically he had me meet him at the craps table. This is where he started in on his idea. To be honest I couldn’t really pay attention to why he needed to receive a ‘smallish’ loan that was not only going to return itself to me a hundred times over, but that could make me a genius is some community of science or welfare or something. I definitely should have paid attention, but Danger has this way about him where he can draw out a paragraph that would take ten seconds to read into a monologue that has to be broken up into acts so that the audience has the opportunity to go to the bathroom. In the course of his discourse Danger was able to explain his experiences from learning how to drive, his love of licorice, some joke he had made a week ago that made him laugh, a new band he heard on the radio who’s name didn’t make sense to him, and occasionally in between these details he was able to insert some passing details of his plan. After the first twenty minutes I lost focus, the next twenty minutes saw me nodding off, the final twenty had me contemplating asking him to repeat the whole diatribe to see if this type of conversation was a rehearsed script or if it was organically drawn out.
The end finally arrived and the point was finally made, Danger wanted to borrow $5993.48 to unleash his money making scheme. Despite knowing the amount of time it would cost me I asked two questions; Is the money making scheme borrowing people’s, or more specifically my, money, and why such a specific amount, why not round it out to something like $6000? Danger looked at me incredulously and took a deep, deep breath, which I took to mean that he was either offended or had another monologue coming, and said, in rather patronizing (at least for someone borrowing money) voice that the scheme was not just borrowing money, and that the amount was specific because he did not want to be greedy. Even though I was about 90 percent sure that he was patronizing me I agreed to loan him the money. I didn't know if it was because he was so confident that my money wouldn't be at risk, or because he was just so goddamn charismatic, but I somehow was able to part with my money, and also my last shred s of sanity and dignity, and the best advice I could muster, “don’t fuck me on this.”
Turns out that the scheme that Danger was willing to risk all of my money in was a little more intensive than $5993.48 could afford him so the first stop we made was to the craps table, He was going to let it ride with my money, as soon as he put the cash on the table I knew I was never going to see it again. With the first role of the dice he was all in, and, miraculously, it wasn’t a death sentence. But the second role hit me like a wrecking ball, it was a seven, the death blow. I looked right at him, and I said it’s time to go get some lipstick, so I can pretty myself up now that you just fucked me. He understandably distraught but that wasn’t getting my money back.
I went home and contemplated how I was going to be able to recoup my losses. I was struck through with inspiration. The money I had loaned Danger was for my vacation, the first vacation I was going to be able to take since I graduated high school. Since this was out the door I was going to have fun on my time off. I was going to see things that had never seen before, and Danger was going to be the one to make it possible. I began planning what would be the vacation of a life time. I was going to set up my own personal game show, where Danger was the only contestant. For every activity he was going to have his debt reduced, but at stake was his dignity, his wellbeing, and even possibly his life. He readily agreed to my terms, because, even with all his natural charm and charisma, he was bad with money, as made obvious by our recent transaction.
Scooby Doo. To his credit Danger didn't complain, or look apprehensive, but he did mumble something about making a new friend. With that the fight was on and Grady took an easy lead to my great amusement. However, the tide soon started to change, and the fight slowly started shifting so that neither fighter had much of an advantage so I felt it necessary to start cheering on my boy Grady, though I was still clearly optimistic. Grady then began to tire out while Danger was catching his second wind and suddenly Danger yelled “it’s lipstick time mother fucker” and started beating Grady into submission. Finally Grady’s wild spirit was broken, and Danger was able to make himself a friend and I was definitely not ready to see that. I asked him afterward what the hell he meant by “It’s lipstick time” and he told me that I was “about to realize that I may have just fucked myself on having him fight a dog.” Turns out that he is a dog savant, and he knew that all Grady wanted was a friend. So the score at this point was 1-0 against me and I knew that I had to step up the game, so I skipped straight to the gauntlet.
That evening I decided that I was going to push Danger to the mental, physical, and emotional limit. At the end of the night, I was going to be reimbursed, and he was either going to be lying on the ground a broken and battered pile, or he was going to be able to stand and shake my hand and we could part ways with mutual respect. I was understandably excited, he was confused and wearily wary. First I decided to confuse him by letting him have fun on a swing set, and he was able to deliver. I then sent him plunging down from his emotional high. I started by forcing him into a cold and dark prison and then started berating him from a higher altitude with every emasculating insult and put down I could think of, and I had a little bit of fun with it “You will never amount to anything,” “you’re a son of a motherless goat,” “your hair looks like you got it cut with hedge clippers by a blind man and you told him the style you wanted was Lesbian Justin Beiber chic,” “your cooking is mediocre at best” I was throwing gold at the poor guy, and to his credit he endured without a single tear falling.
At this point he didn't know which way was up emotionally, and so I threw him a curve, he was going to have to beat my undefeated tic-tac-toe game, on the first try. At first I thought he was totally befuddled and defeated but that sneaky son of a bitch somehow pulled victory from the jaws of defeat, and he was ecstatic. Next I figured he would start being fatigued from his earlier battle with Grady and his swing excursion so I asked him to use my manual oil drill. He ended up looking like a stripper who forgot to take off her clothes, who was less dancing with the pole so much as trying to impregnate it. I soon asked him to stop so that I didn’t start feeling sick, or compelled to start throwing dollar bills his way. In order to make sure he was tired I had a new series of events that would push him past exhaustion.
First up he and I had a pull up contest, one in which I cheated, somehow he also won this challenge as well. Next he had to run through the obstacle course. To this point this event seemed to give him the most trouble. At one point he also almost fell to what could have been his death, or at least a pretty severe scraped knee. The monkey bars proved to be a pretty difficult challenge, at least that’s what I was led to believe from the intense gestures he made, as well as the expressions on his face. The rainbow walk seemed to look like it was going to be a piece of cake for him, but here too he stumbled from time to time. Somehow little Samuel “Danger” Warbucks was able to complete, and even excel in every challenge of the gauntlet. Finally he was able to step into the ring of victory, a debt-free man. All that stood before him was the final task; he had to be beat me in hand to hand combat.
This was the final challenge so I was ready to take no chances. Every event to this point was meant to drain him of strength, stamina, and fortitude. This event was mine to lose, so I started off carefully, I threw a punch that was pretty easily blocked and turned into a punch targeted at my face so I changed my game plan and we went to some old school professional wrestling style fighting. First we postured (He chose tiger stance) then we locked up, and I took control with a devastating vertical suplex then I stood him up to take a bit of a cheap shot to the gut and then I decided to give the crowd the ol’ razzle dazzle and threw down a good old fashioned airplane spin, which honestly seemed like some great fun for both of us . Unfortunately this got me a little bit dizzy and Danger was able to take advantage. I went for one of the most devastating moves that I know of, the elbow drop and apparently Danger had enough fight in him to move over to his left a little bit and get out of my way, which I cannot say feels too good. Danger liked the idea of an elbow drop so he got ready to throw one of his own, albeit his was much more successful which felt like he may have broken my sternum. From there he kind of just lost control, and crossed a line if you ask me and he even show boated for the cameras for a bit. Then he decided that he wanted to finish me off so I thought that this was as good a time as any to teach him the most valuable lesson a person can learn. I gathered all the strength that I could muster and threw the hardest blow I could muster right at his Dangling Dangers, this seemed to hurt him a bit, and between the embarrassing ass kicking I had just received, and the fact that I pretty much blew $6000 in twenty four hours I decided to gloat while yelling my musing at him. As he was languishing on the ground I squatted down slightly pointed right at him and yelled “THAT’S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKER!!!” which was soon followed by me telling him slightly quieter (though I was still pointing at him for some reason) and said, “You can pay your dues, take you punches, get a few in, and then do everything right in life in order to get ahead, but there will always be somebody there ready to punch you right in the dick and take all your glory away. “ Then I helped him up and took him to the winner’s podium, he deserved to celebrate a bit and no matter how bitter the pill was I still had to give the little shit some credit, he did what he needed to do so I had to shake his hand. As we walked back to the car we both rode in he said, “We’re cool now right? Want to be best friends?” I couldn't help myself, I looked him right in the eye and said, “No we are not cool, you still owe me $38.23, but yeah we can be best friends, that was a bad-ass elbow drop.” From then on we were best friends, though he still owes me the money.
