Neanderpundit

vman has written the best troll bait EVAR! go. Play whack a troll

In 1978 I worked for Inland Steel.

I worked for quite a few folks during the course of my apprenticeship. Most of them were decent guys, and I liked them all. One who was a particular favorite was a guy I’ll call Tiny. In fact, everyone called him Tiny. If you DIDN’T call him tiny, he was likely to catch you up in his fists (they were about the size of 9 lb Armor canned hams) and crush you like a bug.

Anyway, Tiny would have been a defensive lineman for some big ten school (or so he said) (I have no idea what a defensive lineman is) – if he hadn’t had trouble with his affinity for Bacardi and Bolivian marching Powder. Anyway, he was a big, strong, and remarkably well educated guy. Who had two modes: Nap (Bacardi 151 rum) and do it all (Bolivian marching powder)

Tiny had a specific and intense hatred for Barry Manilow. If you brught in a tape and put it on the office intercom he would burst into the office like a crazed John Belushi and rip the tape out, pull the tape out of the cassette, and string it around the shop like so many party streamers. It was a bad idea to cross this line.

One day, when Tiny was in “Nap” mode we discovered something interesting. The radio was playing “grazinginthegrassisagasbabycanyoudigit”. Some loud noise woke tiny, and he immediately sang the whole song, start to finish. It got to be a regular thing, we’d play some song, and hit the picnic table with a wrench, and Tiny would wake up and sing the song.

SO one night, midnight shift, I leaned close to Tiny’s ear, and whispered “oh Mandy. You came and you gave without taking.. etc.”

I walked out of the lunchroom and slammed the door.

A few seconds later, Tiny erupted from the door screaming. “WHO DID THIS TO ME” All the other guys in the shop immediately pointed to me. I grinned sheepishly. And then Tiny proceeded to chase me around the shop with a spud wrench.

He eventually cornered me and began to beat me with the wrench. Screaming the whole time- “OH MANDY! YOU CAME AND YOU GAVE WITHOUT TAKING! AND I SENT YOU AWAY!” punctuating each verse with a well-directed whack at my noggin. The helmet took most of the hits, so I was more or less unharmed, but he did get in a couple rib shots in so I ended the day with two broken ribs. Well, fractured, I should say.

I certainly deserved eevry hit. And Tiny was less than amused, because he had the hated song in his head all day. I was in a lot of pain, but it was worth it.

#5 in the top ten asswhippings of my life

When I was about 14, we spent a week on Kentucky Lake, mostly making the fishing good for the folks who came before us. (You shoulda been here last week, the fish was a jumpin outa the water into the boat) (You know the drill)

Anyway, as fishing was mostly an excuse for Dad to drink beer, which he didn’t get to do that often, we mostly sat around trying not to get sunburned.
One day, about the middle of the week, dad and I took a rented wooden jonboat out to an island not far away from the cottage we were renting. We were casting into the short, and taking a few crappie here and there, nice fishing. Anyway, we are sitting there, and a snake fals out of a tree, right into the boat. I’m not sure what kind of snake it is, but not being overfond of snakes, it didn’t matter much to me.

Dad, on the other hand, not afraid of any man, is terrified of snakes. And has a right to be, he’s alergic enough that almost any snakebite is a death sentence for him.

I had, previous to this moment, thought that Jesus was the only person who could walk on water. Dad changed my mind at once, as he did an almost cartoon like paddle and splash from the boat to the island.

I flipped the snake out of the boat with my fishing pole.

The snake headed toward dad.

Dad ran inland.

I trolled around the island for a moment or two, calling for him, and then realized:

I had the boat. I had the gas. I had dad’s smokes, his beer, and a coolerful of sammiches.

So I went fishing.

When the boat and I drifted lazily back to the shore some hours later, Dad had already been rescued by the innkeeper, who had gone to the island to feed his hogs, I was red all over from laying drunk in the sun with no shirt on, the bottom of the boat was full of vomit from me trying to smoke, and the vomit consisted entirely of beer, sammiches, and a few of the fish we’d caught earlier.

An asswhiping over a sunburn is no fun, but an asswhipping and sunburn superimposed on my very first hangover may have been what put me off drinking to begin with.