never pass up the opportunity to beat up a teenager

today's lesson: never pass up the opportunity to beat up a teenager.


so, today after work i was playing a little tennis with a buddy. let me rephrase that. today, i was playing a little shirtless tennis with a buddy. don't worry, i'm not naive. unless i missed some sort of memo, i do in fact understand that 5'9'', 175 lbs is not the new 6'2'', 180 lbs of lean, mean, 'iron your clothes on my abs' fighting machine. needless to say, i was at a local park and could care less about what people thought of my "modern" body. things were going well until a group of teenage skateboard punks showed up trying to act cool. i wanted to kick their asses although, they shouldn't have taken it personally. i was one of those same punks 10 years ago, and, well, i'd like to go back and kick my ass.


after they spent about 15 minutes skating around, saying cool things like "nice ollie, pussy" and "you're a homo" to each other, they skated past my shirtless, sweaty, play-doh body. in passing, the ring leader of the group said (in a sarcastic, mocking, 'i'm a douchebag', pre-pubescent, voice) "ahh...look at my flubby tummy..."

at that point, i didn't know what was more embarrassing: the fact that these kids are arguably bigger bad-asses right now than i'll ever be, or the fact that i (probably 10 years their senior) wanted to physically fight them. (to complete the triad of embarrassment, it is quite possible....in fact likely....that they would have kicked my ass). immediately, a couple scenarios ran into my head:

1) quick. point out something embarrassing about one of the kids, so the other two gang up on him and laugh with me

2) take one of their skateboards and break it

3) hit a tennis ball at one of the kids

...long story short, i didn't do any of those things and i really regret it. this is something that's gonna bug me for awhile. a feeling comparable to, "hey, i meant to tell you, 3 years ago when you were dating whatsherface i saw her blowing some guy in the bathroom". so, everyone out there, next time you see a teenager being a dickhead, don't give him the benefit of the doubt. please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfR42GOAemI