How Short Circuit Got Me Into My First Fight

Maybe most of you know the movie as Johnny Five.  Yeah, Short Circuit,  the 1986 film about a robot who gains the capacity to think, live, and love.  While playing with some kid, I quoted this movie. Later, this kid wanted to rip my head off.

I couldn’t have been older than four years old.  My mother occasionally took me to her friend’s apartment where there were tons of kids who were around the same age.  Killing roly polies, playing with water guns, watching movies like Friday the 13th and The Toxic Avenger when the teenagers were around–some fond childhood memories.

This brings me to my first and only fight.  It was with a kid named Christopher.  This six year old was tiny, troubled, and rude to adults.  Apparently, he had a shaky family life.  He and his mom were staying with her sister temporarily until they got their lives together.  I remember he instigated an impromptu wrestling match with me after watching the Thriller music video.  One of us ended up getting a loose tooth knocked out.  He cried and cried while I felt like a minor titan.

Your Momma Was a…

On another occasion, Christopher had cheap little water gun which he was shooting at me.  Along with the onslaught of bullets, he threw grenades at me, gravel from the street.  Since I had no weapons, I figured I’d draw upon wit to disarm him.  I had just recently watched Short Circuit.  There’s a scene where several robots have been programmed to destroy Johnny 5, but he outsmarts them.  At one point, he says to one of the robots, “Your momma was a snowblower!” Get it?  He was suggesting that these robots were nothing more than spare parts.

So I attempt to emulate my most recent hero.  ”Hey, Chris, your momma was a snowblower!”  And we continued playing.  Christopher got to shoot at me, and I got to pretend I was Johnny 5 for an afternoon.

What are the chances?

About a week later, I saw Christopher again.  I remember him standing about 10 feet away from me, yelling at me and crying.  ”You called my mom a snowblower!”  He left me there wondering what was so offensive about a harmless quote from a movie.

I learned years later that Christopher’s mom had a drug problem, coke.  I guess he inquired about the snowblower comment, and assumed I was making a crack (haha…purely accidental here) about his mom’s problem.  Had they been cultured, they would have known it was just mad props to Short Circuit. 

The next time I saw him he rode by me on his bicycle and fell shortly after that–in the grass so he wasn’t hurt.  Anyway, he decided it was my fault that he fell.  I walked over to the basketball court where there were other people hanging out, including Christopher’s mom.  A kid holding a basketball, who had previously seen Chris fall and yell at me, decided to warn me.  ”Yo, man.  He’s coming up right behind you.”  I turned around.  Chris and I ended up dueling.  We had our hands stretched out in front of us.  Our fingers locked together like we’re trying to play a game of mercy.  He pulled to the left.  I pulled the right, and he fell right on the blacktop.  I suppose I won.  He ran to his snowblowing mom for consolation, but intead got a few hard hits to the bottom for losing a fight to a younger kid.  That sucks.

I never saw him again after that.    
Offending people is pretty easy.
I was just quoting Short Circuit.