...For You Are the Fairest Of This Land and I Will Fight For Your Honor...With Your Permission Of Course
Miss Kitty and i were watching the movie Wimbledon the other day (not so high on Kirsten Dunst, but i find Paul Bettany hilarious; thought the movie held its own for a romantic comedy). At one point in the movie, KD is approached by a guy she dated previously while she is with PB. The guy makes a couple of embarrassing comments at KD's expense, prompting PB to belt him across the chin. The couple then makes their escape from the party, yada, yada, yada...
Miss Kitty, who has a habit of asking babyish questions when fishing for romantic comments, turns to me and asks, "Would you fight to defend my honor?"
"Uh..." My mind wanders back about, oh, a month and a half - early December.
Kitty and i were in Boston for company's holiday party. We arrived on Thursday night (put up in the Ritz, if you can believe that) and shortly found our way to dinner and drinks with a few of her coworkers. We all leave fairly drunk and i wind up walking back to the hotel with Kity and one of her female coworkers. We make it to the elevator and, as we're waiting for the doors to close, a group of three extremely loud guys stumbled into the lobby. Granted, you could instantly tell that these three were the kind of ego-inflated losers that i would do anything short of gnawing off a limb to get away from but Miss Kitty and her friend were still a little too obvious hurling themselves at the Door Close button while yelling "hurry up and close" when they spotted the guys making a break for our elevator.
I think most people know that the little Door Close button is a sham. Very few elevators have functional ones; they're basically there to give impatient people something to do while they wait for the elevator to close the doors by its own schedule.
As such, it was a rather awkward, though reasonably predictable, moment when the guys made it aboard prior to the doors closing.
"Whatever the fuck that was all about," one of them said immediately. The girls were silent, i hoped that would be the end of it.
One of them requested the 7th floor, then the door closed. Immediately they began to argue with one another about which floor they were actually on. A second or two after arriving at the 7th floor, they came to the consensus that they were actually staying on the 14th floor...some kind of long division error one can only assume.
Kitty's coworker punched the 14 key and i suppose something about the way she did it really pissed off one of the guys.
"Don't get all bent of shape over it, it's one fucking floor."
Not fully understanding the way he probably meant that, she fired back, "Actually it's 7 more floors."
"No need to throw a little fit over there, ok?." The doors opened for our floor. "Damn these Bostonians are fucking stupid."
And here's where i made my mistake. Though the girls had really been the antagonists here, i felt compulsed to reply as we stepped off the elevator. Maybe it was the alcohol, which has been known to increase a guys willingness to throw fists, or maybe it was just the need to voice my ever strengthening assurity that these guys were nothing but clowns. Whatever it was, and no matter how innocuous a comment i chose to reply with, the fact remains that i probably should have just let the doors close, walked to the room and forgotten about it.
"If we were from Boston, why would we be staying here, dumbass?" Not a particularly witty, nor aggressive comment, not to mention i suppose there could be plenty of reasons someone from Boston would stay at the Ritz...as i said, i should have just kept my mouth shut.
Despite my less than stellar comment, Kitty and i were several paes formt he elevator door by the time he was able to craft his response. "Why don't you keep your mouth closed and just walk that whore back to the room?"
Now, a little perspective on me real quick. Though i have been in a few fights, i doubt you could find more than one or two of my current friends and acquaintences that have ever seen me in one. That is to say it's certainly not something that happens with any kind of regularity.
The flip side of that is a personality trait that i wrote about for that idiosyncracy meme a while back. I am admittedly over protective of friends and loved ones. And someone calling Kitty a whore right in front of me, right or wrong, well, that just doesn't sit with me.
Long story short, i charged on back to the elevator and picked a fight with 3 guys over it.
Then i spent the next three days with an earful of Kitty telling me how mad she was at me. Now, there definitely were things to be mad about, but what rubbed me the wrong way was that she and her friend had really created the situation and, right or wrong, i had done what i had done solely in defense of her and she was furious about it.
I admit that i made some poor choices there and i also admit that i can fully understand someone coming from the point of view that this is actually 100% my fault. I may or may not be convinced to agree whole-heartedly but i can already see where you'd be coming from.
What i can't understand is why (after reaming me for 3 days over this incident) Paul Bettany pulling the same thing can draw a doey eyed look from her and a comment like, "Would you fight to defend my honor?"
"Uh...no."
"No!?"
"I tried that, you didn't like it very much."
"Well, he wasn't fighting three guys. I was worried about you."
So, let me see if i get this... If one guy calls Kitty a whore, slug him. If three guys call Kitty a whore, ignore them.
Lesson learned: Honor is only worth fighting for when you know you can win.
Miss Kitty, who has a habit of asking babyish questions when fishing for romantic comments, turns to me and asks, "Would you fight to defend my honor?"
"Uh..." My mind wanders back about, oh, a month and a half - early December.
Kitty and i were in Boston for company's holiday party. We arrived on Thursday night (put up in the Ritz, if you can believe that) and shortly found our way to dinner and drinks with a few of her coworkers. We all leave fairly drunk and i wind up walking back to the hotel with Kity and one of her female coworkers. We make it to the elevator and, as we're waiting for the doors to close, a group of three extremely loud guys stumbled into the lobby. Granted, you could instantly tell that these three were the kind of ego-inflated losers that i would do anything short of gnawing off a limb to get away from but Miss Kitty and her friend were still a little too obvious hurling themselves at the Door Close button while yelling "hurry up and close" when they spotted the guys making a break for our elevator.
I think most people know that the little Door Close button is a sham. Very few elevators have functional ones; they're basically there to give impatient people something to do while they wait for the elevator to close the doors by its own schedule.
As such, it was a rather awkward, though reasonably predictable, moment when the guys made it aboard prior to the doors closing.
"Whatever the fuck that was all about," one of them said immediately. The girls were silent, i hoped that would be the end of it.
One of them requested the 7th floor, then the door closed. Immediately they began to argue with one another about which floor they were actually on. A second or two after arriving at the 7th floor, they came to the consensus that they were actually staying on the 14th floor...some kind of long division error one can only assume.
Kitty's coworker punched the 14 key and i suppose something about the way she did it really pissed off one of the guys.
"Don't get all bent of shape over it, it's one fucking floor."
Not fully understanding the way he probably meant that, she fired back, "Actually it's 7 more floors."
"No need to throw a little fit over there, ok?." The doors opened for our floor. "Damn these Bostonians are fucking stupid."
And here's where i made my mistake. Though the girls had really been the antagonists here, i felt compulsed to reply as we stepped off the elevator. Maybe it was the alcohol, which has been known to increase a guys willingness to throw fists, or maybe it was just the need to voice my ever strengthening assurity that these guys were nothing but clowns. Whatever it was, and no matter how innocuous a comment i chose to reply with, the fact remains that i probably should have just let the doors close, walked to the room and forgotten about it.
"If we were from Boston, why would we be staying here, dumbass?" Not a particularly witty, nor aggressive comment, not to mention i suppose there could be plenty of reasons someone from Boston would stay at the Ritz...as i said, i should have just kept my mouth shut.
Despite my less than stellar comment, Kitty and i were several paes formt he elevator door by the time he was able to craft his response. "Why don't you keep your mouth closed and just walk that whore back to the room?"
Now, a little perspective on me real quick. Though i have been in a few fights, i doubt you could find more than one or two of my current friends and acquaintences that have ever seen me in one. That is to say it's certainly not something that happens with any kind of regularity.
The flip side of that is a personality trait that i wrote about for that idiosyncracy meme a while back. I am admittedly over protective of friends and loved ones. And someone calling Kitty a whore right in front of me, right or wrong, well, that just doesn't sit with me.
Long story short, i charged on back to the elevator and picked a fight with 3 guys over it.
Then i spent the next three days with an earful of Kitty telling me how mad she was at me. Now, there definitely were things to be mad about, but what rubbed me the wrong way was that she and her friend had really created the situation and, right or wrong, i had done what i had done solely in defense of her and she was furious about it.
I admit that i made some poor choices there and i also admit that i can fully understand someone coming from the point of view that this is actually 100% my fault. I may or may not be convinced to agree whole-heartedly but i can already see where you'd be coming from.
What i can't understand is why (after reaming me for 3 days over this incident) Paul Bettany pulling the same thing can draw a doey eyed look from her and a comment like, "Would you fight to defend my honor?"
"Uh...no."
"No!?"
"I tried that, you didn't like it very much."
"Well, he wasn't fighting three guys. I was worried about you."
So, let me see if i get this... If one guy calls Kitty a whore, slug him. If three guys call Kitty a whore, ignore them.
Lesson learned: Honor is only worth fighting for when you know you can win.
posted by Cowboy Matty | 3:33 PM
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