Blunt Wit

So in the foggy past my son and I were playing golf at the local 9-hole short course and happened to get paired with a Frenchman and his 14 year old son. On the seventh hole young Benjie fired his approach shot into the butt of one of the many geese who were rutting and strutting on the course, it being the mating season and all.

Gerrard, his loquacious father, said in a toasty French accent, “Nice birdie!”

I winced (while chuckling inside). Jokes that bad should come with a money back guarantee. I missed my subsequent real birdie putt. Damn lame joke!

But this is all digression.

My story begins a few minutes later on the tee box of the 9th hole as I sized up my many options. A sneaky little hole.

Meandering stream to the left where vagabonds straight out of a Mad Max movie hung out on the banks and prayed for you pull your tee shot so they could collect your ball out of the creek and sell it to the Pro shop (for you to buy it back the following week).

Fairway for Hole One on your right where you risk bodily harm and a lawsuit if you slam your tee shot into any one of the approaching unsuspecting golfers. No, the only play on this hole was right up the middle. The arguably weakest point of my game!

Thus lost in my Tiger Woods moment, without warning, I felt something hit me on my back, just under my right shoulder, hard. I spun around half expecting to see that I had been hit by a ball but to just catch out of the corner of my eye three geese flying overhead.

My back/shoulder suddenly felt … warm. So I pulled my shirt around and lo and behold I had been pelted with goose shit! Dive bombed! Seriously, I didn’t know geese could do that. Be that resourceful. Be that vengeful (as I think his or her load was meant for Benjie’s head and I, an innocent bystander, was caught in the goose shit crossfire). Most of it, greenish in color, still clung to my yellow shirt.

My son laughed up a storm as he helped me scrape it off. Needless to say that night at the dinner table my son reported the entire incident to the rest of the family who laughed uproariously.

I was still pissed I missed that birdie putt.

Have you ever been shit upon – either literally (like me in this case) or figuratively?

So I have a bad habit of taking a perfectly good poem and wrecking it with my imagination. My apologies to Billy Blake and his wonderful little ditty “The Tyger” (reprinted below for your reading pleasure.)

The Brytany
Brytany, Brytany, burning bright
In the nightclubs in plain sight,
What immoral hand or eye
Could feel up thy fearful symmetry?

In what deep fat-fryer lies?
Burnt food to show up on thy thighs?
With Kevin what kids doth thy sire?
What the band dare seize the liar?

And what boulder and what fart
Could pinch the nose – “PU’s” – of thy tart?
And when thy fart began to stink
What dread band and what dread lip-sync?

What the MC Hammer? What the Alice in Chains?
In what sternness was thy vain?
What the advil? What dread gasp
Dare its deadly voice rasp?

When the stars threw down their Spears
And watered heaven with their beers,
Did He test His work to pee?
Did He who ate the lamb roast thee?

Brytany, Brytany, burning bright
In the nightclubs in plain sight,
What immoral hand or eye
Could feel up thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?