"That’ll teach you."

Is there any other phrase better designed to cause quenched, beaten down, silenced resistance to flare back up in a blaze of semi-impotent fury?

After I (admittedly) got my ass whooped in the wee hours of the morning earlier today, I was going to stop stealing someone’s knife and lay off with the permanent marker drawings on the back of his neck.

When I woke up after my two-hour nap after said fight unable to lift my arms above my head or type/write for more than ten seconds without needing a break, I was going to stop using Luke as my punching bag just so I could stop having my arms wrenched up behind my back.

When I bumped into my desk and was made painfully aware of the thirty or so finger bruises on my wrists and forearms, I was mos def going to chill out, before someone saw and got the wrong idea about the whole thing.

The bruises on my back from the attempts at “pressure point” fun? Those on my hips from me trying to escape the knee or foot or whatever the fuck it was being shoved into my back while I was pressed into the floor? Further evidence I should have just given up the damn knife and that I’m just running myself repeatedly into a brick wall.

I’m not a fighter. I think that, if I seriously felt threatened, I could get in enough serious hits to get away. Casual fighting, though, without that adrenaline rush, without that something really bad is going to happen to me feeling that makes things serious? I fuggin’ suck at it, even if I enjoy the stress relief.

And I was going to be okay with that, and stop trying to win. I mean, it’s not such a crucial skill to have, right? And my shoulders really can’t take that kind of strain repeatedly. I had serious trouble quickly typing in the stored procedures and triggers on my database systems exam this morning.

But when I ran into Luke this afternoon and mentioned some of my ailments, he said, “Well, that’ll teach you, then, won’t it?” in that smug, Hoosier yoo-hoo drawl.

See above about flaming semi-impotent determination.

As soon as my shoulders heal, someone is being attacked with a permanent marker or having that knife slipped out of his pocket. At some point, Luke will stop rising to the taunts, I will win and get to voluntarily hand back the knife, or I will be seriously hurt and end up needing to visit a doctor or hospital.

I slept like a rock (“or a man that’s dead”, I suppose) this morning, though, and I’m a lot less stressed about all the shit going on this week. Given that an entire twelve-page issue of the paper has been dropped completely into three-and-a-half people’s laps, it’s better I’m pummelling on Luke, who can handle it and didn’t seem to mind too much, than the people who failed to come through for us this week.

Two and a half more days before I can sleep comfortably and start studying for finals. The minutes are being counted down..