Page 19 - Fire Your Personal Trainer and Kick Your Own Damn Ass

Fire Your Personal Trainer 16
And Kick Your Own Damn Ass

“One-fifty.”

“Well I weigh 135 and I’m going to get bigger and come back and kick
your ass!”

By now there were other kids standing around who saw what happened
and one of them later told me he was in awe of me at that moment for
showing some guts. I got back on my bike and left.

When I got home my mother freaked out. My face was a mess and there
were marks all over my neck from his fingers where he was choking me.
I was disappointed in the outcome of the fight but my disappointment
didn’t come close to matching her hysteria. She called my father at his
office.

I was bitterly disappointed.

I believe it was a day or two later that she saw the kid I had fought walking
past the house and she went outside and confronted him. Maybe it was
the same day. It’s kind of a blur. She had a conversation about what
happened and asked him to step into the house to shake hands with
me and put things behind us. She called up to me. I had no idea he was
there, and – holy cow! – there he was in my house! She made us shake
hands and he left. I never saw him again.

Now, there are a lot of people who will tell you that if someone threatens
you with violence it is better not to resist. There are compelling arguments
on both sides, and my two experiences reveal what can potentially
happen.

When you are confronted by someone you don’t know, you cannot tell
how skilled they are or what they are capable of doing. The first fight
was more of an abdication than a fight. The second was a real fight