Never bring a smoothie to a gun fight. . . . . The hardest thing about chronicling these “Clay Stories” is that, rarely are we anywhere near my computer when they happen. Sometimes we are watching TV or doing yard work, but usually the conversations are over a meal, or driving somewhere. And of all the things we talked about that day, (most of which is common place) I need to remember the “good parts’ and keep it all straight in MY head, so I can relay it to the readers. This is hard enough with a conversation I understand, but with Clay logic, it’s harder to remember WHY we were talking about the thing, that led to the thing, that made him say that cute thing, that no one will understand out of context. But I try. This story is a mess. To set it up, Clay is a bit phobic, or “jumpy”. He scares easy. If you startle him he’ll let out a loud “OUW!” and jump back. Topping the list of things that make him scared are raccoons, black dogs, & bikers. If we are walking through a pet store, and someone has a black dog on a leash, he’ll freeze and /or cower behind me, making “uuuuuuuuuuuu” noises reminiscent of The Cowardly Lion from Oz. (Yet he will take the brown & white pit bulls from across the street for a walk any day.) In the case of raccoons, he chooses to attack first. He’ll tell you at great length his “plan” to find a rock and throw it at the vicious, nasty, mean raccoon, to “scare it away” before it bites him. (His brother LJ was the same at this age.) But more often than not, there is no rock, so he just yells at it. And all this comes from fear. Ive TRIED to explain that, if you just leave the raccoon alone, he always walks away, because he’s ALREADY scared of people, and will only become MORE dangerous if you pick a fight with him first. But once Clay is scared, Fight or Flight kicks in, and flight never wins. On this day, we were sitting at a sidewalk cafe / juice bar when a guy on a motorcycle went by on a hog. He was stocky, wearing the black leather vest with assorted club patches on it, sporting a few tattoos. He JUST rode by. The whole event was 4 seconds and he was gone. Clay got ready to defend us. I can’t sort out all the sentences that should be here from that conversation, but the high points were... Clay, “If dat guy comes over here, I’m going to throw my smoothie at him.” Me: “Why?” Clay, “Because he’s dangerous, he might have a knife, or a gun.” In a very convoluted order we cover the topics of, “He’s not bothering you.“ “Why would you strike first?” “Some bikers are very nice people.” “I don’t know where the napkins are.” “Why would the biker ever BOTHER to attack someone as small as you.?” “You don’t look like you have any money for him to WANT to take.” “A smoothie is not a very effective weapon.” “This is JUST like the raccoon.” “It’s perfectly normal for a health food / juice store that caters to vegetarians to not have steak for your burrito”. “Because for some people, chicken doesnt count”. - “It just doesnt!” “Just because he looks tough, doesnt mean he IS mean. And if he IS tough & mean, WHY would you start with him?” “Look, if you REALLY think someone has a gun, throwing your smoothie at him will not save us. It will just make him angry. (And waste a perfectly good smoothie.)” On these finale two points, - he agrees. SO that’s how I actually ended up having to say out loud, “You should never bring a smoothie to a gun fight.”
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 16:19:03 +0000
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