blindsided

I saw this movie where Sandra Bullock’s character goes out and abducts this enormous black kid and teaches him to play football and ends up shipping him off to her alma mater and scoring awesome seats at all the games and such and I immediately thought to myself “Where do I sign up?!”. The problem is that the movie is totally misleading when it comes to how easy it is to find an enormous black kid just walking around.

First of all it’s a long drive for me just to get to the black kids and I swear every one I saw was either too old, too young or scrawny as hell. Nobody was going to be ponying up 50 yard lines seats for any of these kids let me tell you. No wonder their parents let them roam around at all hours. Finally after a week of canvassing local schools and parks I came upon a good candidate. I forgot how Sandra went about introducing herself to the kid in the first place so I had to improvise. Luckily for me I had a bottle of chlorophyll and some heavy-duty netting so instead of trying to talk him into the van like some weirdo I simply snuck up behind him and held a cloth soaked in chlorophyll against his face until he went unconscious. Problem was that chlorophyll doesn’t make people go unconscious, I was thinking about chloroform. Looking back, why did I even have a bottle of chlorophyll to begin with? It was an expensive lesson in terms of getting repeatedly punched and kicked but the next day I was back at it, visions of 50 yard line seats dancing in my bruised and swollen head.

Long story short, I eventually found another giant black kid that looked of high school age and ‘acquired’ him without too much fuss. Funny thing though, the kid that Sandra grabbed was passive and had a heart of gold while the youth that was slowly coming to in the seat next to me did not seem to share those characteristics. At all. I think it would be fair to say he was almost exactly the opposite.  As much as I tried to explain the situation to him he simply refused to listen and as his strength slowly returned I could see I was going to have my hands full.

The first few days were just heartbreaking. Every time I tried to make a kind gesture I just seemed to make things worse… and I was running out of chloroform. Turns out he did have a bed at home, he had a good relationship with his father and did fine in school. He even knew how to play football already. I couldn’t catch a break!

You know the expression “No good deed goes unpunished”? Well now I understand where that phrase comes from. No sooner had I completed the paperwork enrolling my new charge in the nearby high school but I see his face splashed all over the TV and newspapers! The local authorities had jumped to the completely wrong conclusion about the whole thing and now they were making me out as some sort of bad guy. I swear, you try to help people and this is what you get.

Long story short, I ended up having to let the unappreciative kid go. He was simply too large, too strong, and as much as I hate to make the accusation, I felt he was a bit racist for my liking. Truth is though it was mostly the large and strong parts. I could have won him over eventually if he hadn’t almost ripped down the bars keeping him in basement before the tranq darts took effect.

I guess the worst part was listening to him describe his ‘ordeal’ to the press when I returned him to his neighborhood. It was very hurtful. He just didn’t get it. Some kids just look a gift horse right in the mouth.

Oh well. Everything is a learning experience right?

After fixing up the basement, and by fixing up I mean reinforcing the steel bars, I lowered my sights a bit and decided to try to get in good with the folks that run the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I’ll be headed over to the Indian neighborhood in just a bit.