– You look terrible.
– Well you’d look worse, if you’d just been in a fight.
– Oh my god Max, someone beat you up?
– Did I say that? No. I clearly said I was in a fight.
– I don’t know how clear it was, your cheek’s all swollen and – are you missing a tooth?
– Three. But you should see the other gi – the other person.
– What do you mean, person? Wait a second: did you get beat up by a woman?
–
– Oh man, that’s hilarious! You got beat up by a girl! You must be humiliated!
– You’re an ass,
– Whatever, at least I didn’t get kicked by a woman. I can’t get over it! Whoo, let me catch my breath. So, did you cry? Did she beat you about the head and genitals with her purse? Were you mesmerized by her jiggling bosom as she pummeled you?
– I told you, I wasn’t beat up. It happened to be with a female, but yes, I’d say we were fairly matched, what with her polished claws and stiletto heels. She was like some sort of tarted up chicken.
– It was a retired grandma, wasn’t it. Did she whack you with her walker?
– What do you know? Were you there? You can ask anyone from the parking lot that day. The police officer said he’d have done the same thing.
– Of course, of course. So what you’re saying is she was black.
– What? Oh, ha ha. No, she was this WASPy little…whatever. Vicious. She’s probably eaten her children.
– Please, Max, you’ve got me on the edge of my seat. I’m a child on Christmas morn. With a heart that skips and throbs I wait to hear of your epic brouhaha. What happened?
–
– Actually, Max, that does not suffice. It is not, in fact, sufficient. Kindly relate your tale of woe.
– Tale of woe? I kicked her ass,
– Max, I would say that anytime you are in a situation that seems to require hitting a girl, there is a little, maybe a just titch, of woe.
– For her maybe. Fine. So I’m at Target to buy a toaster, because Susie decided it was the quickest way to dry off her hamster, and I don’t know if you know this, but charred rodent is a bitch to clean.
– Was it Sir Gallahad or Little Fairy Francis?
– Um. Can I tell you how awkward it is that you remember the names of my daughter’s hamsters?
– You don’t know, do you.
– It was the one with brown spots.
– You’re the best father ever, did you know that?
– Do you even know where your kids are?
– No. But one day I shall travel this great land, hoping to see some vestige of myself in the face of a busboy in a diner in
– Have you really been to all those places?
– Remember when I was a roadie that one summer?
– No, if I recall correctly you were the only one in the neighborhood who had your own van. You were a chauffeur for a summer. Did Quails of Adonis ever actually get a gig?
– They mostly played parking lots. But they were in front of venues, sometimes. But buildings and stages could never fully contain the teeth-gnashing, seizure-inducing Sturm und Drang that was the Quails. Anyway, so you’re buying a new toaster…
– Alright, fine. I buy a new toaster – which is great, by the way, I can cook everything from steak to toast, so I don’t have to touch our oven, because that particular appliance is possessed – and I’m walking to my car when I see this…woman repeatedly slamming a stroller into the driver door.
– That’s odd. Didn’t she have anything better to do?
– Okay…she’s doing it as she’s taking her kid out of the car. It’s part of a process through which she is transferring her baby from the stroller. The collision of stroller and minivan is strictly incidental. Why would…never mind.
– Maybe she was OCD, or something. I don’t know, Max, women are crazy. Plus you threw down with her, maybe she’s actually, you know, certifiable.
– … Moving along…. So I go up to her, and I say excuse me, could you stop ramming my car. And she turns to me with what I can only describe as complete shock, as though it never occurred to her that the object impeding her stroller’s progress was a car, that this minivan could be owned by a genuine person, or even that there were people who owned cars.
– Hmm. What did that expression look like?
– This:
– Oh. Wow. She really was surprised, then.
– Didn’t I just say?
– Yeah, but, you know, there’s bound to be some exaggeration.
– Do you want to hear this or not?
– I’m still waiting for why she kicked your ass.
– We’re right there. She gets over her shock, and says “I am so, so sorry. Are you ok? Does your pussy hurt?”
– Well, that escalated quickly.
– I just…I was speechless. She’s got a baby in one hand, helping a toddler into of her car with the other, and she just stepped up and gets in my grill, like she wants to start something.
– Did she really, Tupac?
– I have to say,
– I’m sorry, have you been living in a cave for several years?
– No, but now I FEEL it.
– Of course you do.
– Damn straight. So getting back, I still haven’t said anything to this tramp, and she’s smirking, and says “oh, does your wife not let you talk to other women? Or maybe your husband? Is that it? Are you just afraid of our entire gender? Is it the menstruation that freaks you out? The tampons?”
– What is wrong with this lady?
– Well that did it. So I come back to her with “Sorry, ma’am, I was just wondering how you fit all that junk into your pants. I didn’t know they made ass girdles.”
– And Max comes roaring back!
– I felt I had regained some ground.
– And then some. Is that when she sprayed you with the contents of her whup-ass can?
– No. But meanwhile she’s still got the stroller between me and my ride.
– You realize you can’t call your Dodge Caravan “your ride.”
– It is what it is. That’s where I do my pimpin’.
– Did you climb over the stroller?
– So very carefully, as she’s looking at me, not with daggers – there are huge flaming broadswords shooting from her pupils toward me, with hacking and swinging motions – the succubus puts her baby in his car seat, takes the stroller, and slams it into my shins.
– Awesome. Sorry, Max, but I am in awe. Astonishing, this firecracker.
– But it’s not one of those tiny cloth and plastic and aluminum deals. It’s a Bugaboo, with full on off-road tires, and the little cowcatcher in front. And it hurts. I have matching bruises on my legs.
– So did you pop her?
– I’m too shocked to move. So she starts screaming “Get out of the way, cuntweasel!”
– Cuntweasel? That’s new. I like it. Cuntweasel.
–
– Sorry, I’m listening.
– By now there’s a crowd gathering, because she’s shrieking like some meth-ed out harpy. I back out from between the cars, if only to let her pass, hoping she’ll stop jamming her SUV of a stroller into my shins. As soon as we’re out in the open, she hauls off and whacks me with her baby bag.
– I thought you said the baby was in the car.
– One doesn’t actually put – baby stuff. There was baby stuff in the bag. Diapers, toys, sippy cups, and somehow a very heavy, very substantial three pound weight.
– When are kids supposed to start working out?
– For her,
– You mean right now? Maybe a little. A bissel. What, you want to fight about it?
– Funny. So the weight knocks out my teeth, and while I’m blinking away the whirling pretty stars she kicks me in the crotch.
– Oof. That’s uncalled for.
– There was a line, and she had crossed it. So I hauled off and clocked her, right in the baby maker. Bam, fist to uterus. She staggers back, and I pull myself upright, and deliver what might have been the greatest right cross of my nascent and short-lived boxing career. Knocked the bitch right out.
– Speaking for men everywhere, Max, I can truly say that you are the No Fear Player of the Day.
– You know it. What’s so funny?
– I’m sorry, I can’t get it out of my head. Cuntweasel. Genius!
