Hanging out with David Herrington wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been so damn fat and annoying and when I say “fat” I mean that David wasn’t a little guy by any stretch of the definition.  David may have only been five foot six inches tall but he weighed nearly three hundred pounds, very little of that was muscle and gravity wasn’t his friend at all.  In fact, gravity was kind of a perpetual bully to David.  His body style was best described as “lumpy”, in fact, that quickly became my personal nickname for him when he wasn’t around (and sometimes when he was around, if he annoyed me enough).  Cody thought that nickname was hilarious and even started calling David by that nickname when it was just Cody and me together.

I used the nickname to express my disdain for David Herrington.  

Cody used the nickname a lot more personably than I did.

David’s voice was the loud kind of whiney fat person voice that carried a lot farther than you would have liked it to and he never seemed able to whisper especially when he was talking about things best talked about between friends in private or at least in hushed tones.  David just didn’t have very advanced social skills, I credit that to his parents deciding he should be an only child (in hindsight not a bad idea) and spoiling him rotten (because making a mistake and then throwing lots of money at it to try to fix it is such a liberal concept).  David had never played sports but he’d been in lots of school clubs, he’d played the trumpet for two years straight in his high school band and he liked Dungeons and Dragons which made him tops in Cody’s book.  In fact, that’s how Cody said that they met the third day of history class … David was reading the D&D “Player’s Handbook” right there in class and making notes when Cody noticed him and they struck up a conversation.  After that, Cody invited David over to the student union and David started hanging out with us on an almost daily basis.

“David’s cool.” Cody said.

No.

That was a lie.

That was a horrible, terrible lie because David Herrington was not cool; he was a fat, mouth breathing retard and those were his good points.  I learned not to make too much fun of David around Cody … it wasn’t because Cody got mad at me for doing it, it was because me making fun of David around Cody was often detrimental to Cody’s health.  One time I saw David walking towards the student union for lunch.  He was wearing a purple two piece jogging suit and I muttered out loud “Oh, look!  Here comes Grimace's stunt double!” and the next thing I knew was that Cody had spewed Pepsi out of his nose and mouth in a fine spray before he threw his head back and tried to laugh and choke to death at the same time.  It was an interesting thing to hear … someone trying to laugh and choke at the same time while attempting to drown in a mouthful of Pepsi.  Fortunately I was wearing my black leather jacket at the time so cleanup on my part was easy enough but a lesson had been learned … if you were going to make fun of David, be sure that you were standing behind Cody when you do it.

David liked heavy metal, mostly the lighter stuff like Ratt, Twisted Sister and Stryper.  Wow.  Could Stryper really even be considered to be heavy metal?  We often debated that topic; sometimes hotly and loudly, much to the amusement or chagrin of the fellow visitors to the grill, depending on how deep we got into the subject and how heated our debate became.  Hearing Cody shout out "Stryper sucks!" and having that particular outburst not only quiet the entire population of the grille but actually have people turn their heads to stare at him was epic.  Cody had recently turned David on to Iron Maiden and now David was gung ho for them.  The problem wasn't that David was starved for music, no, he was just starved for attention and the only reason why David hung out with us was because no one else had asked him to hang out with them.

I began to see that situation was not without reason.

As far as appearance, David was a walking fashion disaster.  I once told Cody that maybe all those bands that got together to form Band Aid would get back together and raise money to get David some decent clothes.  David usually dressed in baggy camp shorts, had a wallet on a chain, brown (sometimes blue) dress socks, old ratty Chuck Taylors, a leather spiked wrist band, an old digital Timex and some heavy metal T-shirt worn under a plaid button up shirt which he pulled on and wore like a windbreaker.  I think he’d been wearing the plaid shirt for a long time now … too long ... because sometimes if I had the misfortune to sit next to him I got a whiff of something that made me swear never to sit that close to David ever again.  I entertained the thought that when it got colder that the next accessory we'd see David add to his ensemble would be one of those cold weather hats, the kind with the bill and the ear flaps, the kind that Canadians usually thought of as high fashion.

His pear shape meant that he tended to waddle when he walked, sometimes even shuffling; his Chuck Taylors made rubber stretching sounds when he did so and he usually got loud and nasally if that walk covered long distances … like say from the parking lot to the mall entrance.  David also didn’t fit in booths at fast food restaurants … not very well.  We learned that early and when it came to booths David didn’t even try and we knew better than to ask.  In fact, on occasion when the three of us went out to eat Cody would be quick to tell the hostess that we would like a table.  That fact of life was just a given that we had to come to a work around real quick in the time that he started hanging around together.  At the student union, when we all sat in a booth, David pulled up a chair at the end of the table to join us … it was the only way he could fit and be included in the group.  I’d seen tables like that before where the end section was designed for someone with a wheelchair or other handicap to use as their space.  I took out a sheet of paper one day, drew a really fat person in a wheelchair as a generic type symbol, carefully tore out the picture into a square and put it on the edge of the table.

Cody looked at it, trying to figure out what it was.

“It’s the sign that designates that part of the table for fat, mouth breathing, handicapped retards.” I said.

Cody laughed out loud then, seeing David walking in the front door he shoved the hand drawn insult over to me.

“Take that.  Here he comes.” Cody whispered.

I waited until David had seen us and was head towards our table.  I slid the drawing back out to the edge of the table where David would see it first thing.  Cody saw me do that and his look was priceless.  He sucked wind and grabbed at the drawing, taking it from me in a short lived but heated tug of war and then wadding it up and putting it in his pocket just as David pulled up a chair and sat down.

“You guys saved my place.” He said sarcastically.

“Saved you a spot.” Cody said.

“Could almost say that we marked it for you.” I added.

Cody kicked me in the shin under the table.

I grinned and rubbed my shin.


I said that David was fat and annoying.  The part about him being fat I could live with, even though it was a constant opportunity for me to ridicule him, but the annoying part I definitely could do without and that was what aggravated me the most about him.  David was annoying and he knew it.  In fact, I think he liked being annoying, even tried being annoying because he excelled at it.  David liked being annoying because that made him the center of attention and David loved being the center of attention … even if the attention he was getting was negative.

David was a nerd and sometimes he could be a good nerd, the kind you didn’t mind having around just to talk a bunch of nerd shop and bounce nerd ideas off of and sometimes David could just be a real pain in the ass nerd … the embarrassing kind of pain in the ass nerd that started talking out loud about the battle tactics of the Ewoks or the sexual positions of Klingons when Cody and I were walking with him through a shopping mall filled with attractive college age or older women.  In fact, when the three of us were together, the cooler that Cody and I tried to be the more uncool that David would act, in almost direct proportion.  It was almost as if David was scared that Cody and I would link up with some hot examples of the opposite sex and then abandon him there in the mall, without a date and without a ride back home so he actively seemed to both sabotage our chances of happiness without him and to make himself generally so annoying that we wished that we really were there without him.  I guess it was the only way that he knew how to interact with others or maybe it was a safety instinct … if he drove others away from us he would always have the two of us for company.

I don’t think that David had many friends or that he had ever had many friends and I think that he just didn’t know what to do with people who might have become his friends if he hadn’t been such an arrogant, annoying asshole most of, if not all, the damn time.  David made it very hard to like him; in fact, being around David was something akin to an intellectual and social chore.  David made it easy to dislike him ... in fact, he oversimplified the effort.

Me?  

I just thought that David was a fat, mouth breathing dork who couldn’t quite reach every part of his body with a washcloth and who would one day end up having to pay some really desperate woman serious money in order to lose his virginity.  The fact that he was smart enough to probably one day earn that kind of disposable income was just another way that life was funny strange like that.

David and I really got into a heated nerd debate one day at lunch.  One of the more annoying things about David was the fact that he thought that "Return of the Jedi" was the greatest "Star Wars" movie of the trilogy and he loved the Ewoks.  Oh my God, did David love Ewoks.  He once told us that his mother bought him some Ewok Underoos for his birthday but that they were too small for him and he couldn’t find a pair that fit even though his mom took him to like ten different stores.  That part made me laugh my ass off.  When David went to the bathroom Cody looked at me and I just smiled.

"What?" Cody asked.

"Nothing." I said.

"You're thinking of something."

"Yeah." I said.

"Spill it."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll get mad."

"At what?"

"At me making fun of Lumpy."

"You always make fun of Lumpy ..."

And that's when I put on my best little boy pouty face and started talking in my best comical whiney fat boy voice, sitting on my hands and rocking left and right in my chair.

"Mom says I can have some Star Wars Ewok Underoos but none of the stores have any Star Wars Ewok Underoos in a size triple extra fat ass!  We've been to ten different stores this morning and all I want is some Star Wars Ewok Underoos ... I want some Ewok Underoos in my size and I want to see the manager and he better bring me a corn dog!" I droned loudly.

A few people around us looked at me but I didn't care.  Cody was about to lose it, flashing his hands for me to stop while he tried to catch his breath.  Cody choked back a laugh as he threw a menu at me and I caught it in my hand, putting it back down on the table just as David came back and sat back down.  He looked at Cody, who was trying to wipe the tears from his eyes, and then to me and my rock solid poker face.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked Cody.

Cody snorted once then shook his head, using his fists to wipe his eyes.

"Allergies." I said flatly.  "I'm starving.  Let's order."

And we did.

When the waitress asked us what we wanted and I asked her if they had any corndogs Cody snorted and kicked me under the table, in the shin, hard.  It hurt but it had been so worth earning that shin kick.  Of course, the waitress was oblivious to the little in-joke that Cody and I had shared.

Ewoks.

Fucking teddy bears with sharp sticks.

If George Lucas ever had a brainstorm ... the Ewoks were the equivalent of Lucas having a wet fart in his skull.  David fucking loved Ewoks, oh my God, David Herrington fucking loved those furry little sons of bitches in the same way that National Geographic seemed to love half-naked African women.  This was a point of view that I took deep delight in ridiculing him on and debating him at great length just for fun whenever the opportunity arose and trust me, that opportunity arose more than a few times in the short time that I knew him.

Talking about the Ewoks and how ridiculous they were was a surefire quick way to irritate David to the point of blustering angered frustration and, as I said, for some reason I took great delight in irritating that fat retard that day.  I was just in that kind of mood.  Usually our debates took place at lunch since that was a time when we were most likely to be all together, case in point … that Saturday when Cody, David and I were having lunch on Ellis Avenue at the Pizza Hut there in front of the big Sack and Save discount grocery store.  David and Cody were having a comparative discussion about Dungeons and Dragons and Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”.  When Cody mentioned that there was no way that twelve dwarves could have defeated Smaugh the Dragon, David made a “Star Wars” reference to the Ewoks defeating the Empire, claiming that size didn’t matter.  

Seeing an opportunity for some fun, I started an argument with David by dangling a prime piece of nerd bait in front of him.

“You know, David … The Ewoks were just teddy bears with sharp sticks.  Comparing Thoren Oakenshield to Wickett the Ewok is asinine.  There’s no comparison and don’t give me that size doesn’t make a difference crap.  The Ewoks defeating the Imperial garrison there on Endor would be the equivalent of the Care Bears usurping the Roman Empire at the height of its power and glory.  Sorry.  It just isn’t happening.” I said.

Cody rolled his eyes because he knew what was coming.  He saw it a mile away and hunkered down in whatever intellectual bunker he could find to avoid any collateral damage from the exchange of nerd nuking that was about to take place.

“Oh, I beg to differ.  The Ewoks were a highly organized native fighting force and Endor was their home.” David would say matter of factly as he began the rather uncivilized consumption of a piece of deep dish supreme pizza.

David didn’t really eat food, no, the act of David “eating” was kind of a combination of absorbing his food like an amoeba and vacuuming it up at the same time.  You couldn’t watch David eat for long without thinking that you were somehow witnessing a Lovecraftian act of unspeakable evil.

It wasn’t pretty.  

Not all of David's food got into his mouth … some of it wound up on the edges, debris from the act, like flotsam and jetsam from a ship that had ran itself aground on sharp rocks or a semi-rig that tried to go under an overpass that was lower than it was and some of his food fell onto his clothes.  David usually wore his food and the later in the day that you encountered him, the more readily apparent it was that he either didn’t notice that some of his food hadn’t made it into that gaping maw he called a mouth or he just didn’t care.  I think that David had long ago given up on ever dating anything other than his right hand, that is, if he could even date his right hand and given his girth I had serious doubts if he could.  No, David probably had some stuffed animal that he kept under his bed and that poor stuffed animal, one day when it was finally found, would cause a lot of therapy

“David.  The Ewoks were teddy bears with sharp sticks.  They were not midget Gurkhas and they were not little furry Ninjas.  If Lucas had kept the action on Tattooine and replaced the Ewoks with the Tusken Raiders, you know, the Sand People, then I might have half-way forgiven him as the Sand People were pretty bad ass.”

“Hell yeah!” Cody piped in.  “I have to agree with Shields on that, the Sand People kicked ass!”

“The Ewoks kicked ass, too!” David said with his mouth full.

That wasn’t pretty to see.  It was a sight I’d not soon forget and it took me a second or two to compose my thoughts after having seen part of the food destruction process that David used to nourish himself.

“Hey, David?  What do you call the furry stuff on the bottom of a scout walker's foot pads?”

“Your mom’s pussy?” David said.

Cody gave a low chuckle and I rolled my eyes.

“Slow Ewoks.” I said flatly.

“The Ewoks hid from the scout walkers.  They could go places the scout walkers couldn't.” David said.

“The Ewoks were a joke, they were not some huge, cohesive nation.  At best they were a loose collection of primitive tribes of muppets which might explain the coloration differences.  Man … I bet that even the Jawas could kick the Ewoks’ asses.  They’d just get those giant sandcrawlers and turn that forest into a big flat, wood bottom parking lot paved in layers of splinters and sticky Ewok jam.”

The debate would escalate to the technology of the Ewoks; thrown rocks, sharp sticks, bolas, catapults and little bows and arrows versus the high energy blasters and the body armor that the Imperials carried.  David liked to remind me of the clear cut example of the British Empire versus the Zulus in Africa, citing that the Zulus overcame the British technological superiority by using sheer numbers.  I also explained that the British, at that time, didn’t have massive mile long Imperial Star Destroyers in orbit that could rain down a truly monumental volume of sustained, concentrated, precision aimed turbolaser fire on the heads of the Zulus at will.  It should also be noted, I told him, that the British Empire was only on one world and didn’t have an entire galaxy worth of reinforcements or an entire Imperial Starfleet to draw upon nor could the British Empire destroy an entire planet just for shits and giggles.  After that we got into a discussion of the film Zulu Dawn, the old Peter O’Toole and Burt Lancaster epic and switched between other war films we knew as we compared them all to the Battle for Endor as seen in "The Return of the Jedi".

David would compare the Ewoks to the Zulus and I’d really get David going when I would explain that if I were an Imperial Stormtrooper stationed on Endor with the Imperial garrison there that during my free time I’d be heading into the forest with a blaster and doing my fair share of hunting those stinky little retarded teddy bears to extinction.  David would usually take the bait by then and Cody would sit back for some real scathing nerd roasting on my part.

“… and in my living quarters I’d have an Ewok rug by my bunk, Ewok fur slippers to put my feet in when I had to get up in the middle of the night to go take a piss, I’d have a fur Ewok turbotoilet seat cover, an Ewok throw rug that fit around the base of the turbotoilet and I’d have an Ewok fur throw rug for when I stepped out of the shower and needed something to put my wet feet on …”

“No you wouldn’t because if you went into the forest the Ewoks would hunt you down instead because you’d be on their turf.” David would whine back.

“The Ewoks don’t have stuff like electronic sights, macrobinoculars, body armor, comlinks, sensors, scanners or blasters, David … What threat do they pose?  I mean, really?  The worst thing that they could do to me, as a Stormtrooper or a Scout Trooper, would be to jump out from behind a stump and start humping my leg until it went numb and sticky.”

I threw my arms up and loudly did my best Ewok growl then started bouncing up and down in my seat pantomiming an Ewok breathing heavy and rhythmically humping a Stormtrooper’s leg.  Cody snorted and almost choked, waved his hand in front of his face, his mouth full of pizza.

“They have spears, bolas and bows and arrows!  Their spears and arrows are probably tipped in poison.”

“Yeah, like Carebear poison which is probably just green honey and a lot of good that does when I can burn a two inch wide smoking hole clean through one of those stinky little teddy bears at a thousand feet or more away.” I said, pretending to raise a blaster rifle to my shoulder, take aim and making a blaster-like sound when I pulled the imaginary trigger.

“They don’t use the English system in Star Wars.  They use the Metric system.” David said very matter of factly.

“Oh!  That’s right!  The exhaust port on the Death Star was … what?  Two meters wide?”

“That’s right!  That’s proof that they use the Metric system in "Star Wars".”

“And why is that, David?  Aren’t they a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?  If they’re a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away then how the hell do they have the Metric system which is something that we just invented like a little over two hundred years ago?”

“The Metric system is universal.  Basing measurements on units of tens just makes sense.” David said in a neh-neh tone of voice that really irritated me.

“Fuck the Metric system, David!  The point is that I can take my blaster and burn a big smoking hole all the way through your stinky, flea-ridden teddy bear while he’s dancing around the forest waving a sharp stick in the air and I can do it easy from three hundred meters away.  That’s three hundred plus meters, David.  I bet you couldn’t throw that little spear of yours ten meters with those stunted arms so that gives me about a two hundred and ninety meter advantage to kill you from, now doesn’t it?”

“Remember!  Stormtroopers aren’t the most precise marksmen in the galaxy … they always missed.”

“They missed the heroes, David, because it wouldn’t be much of a story if they blasted the heroes first scene, now would it?  Stormtroopers don’t miss every shot … if they did, no one would be scared of them and the Empire would hardly have ever conquered the galaxy, now would it?  Even Ben Kenobi commented on how accurate and precise the Stormtroopers were when they slaughtered the Jawas on Tattooine and the Jawas had a big armored sandcrawler to protect them.”

“Doesn’t matter how accurate you are because like I said … you can’t hit what you can’t see.  If I were an Ewok, you’d never see me coming and when you did it would be too late!” David said.

“David, if you were an Ewok you would be the biggest Ewok I could imagine and I wouldn’t have to see you coming … I could feel the ground tremble when you tried to run.  You'd be like a big fucking Kool-Aid man running through the forest waving a sharp stick in the air and going "Oh yeah!"”

David flipped me off and Cody almost fell out of his chair he was laughing so hard.

“You wouldn’t even see an Ewok in the forest …” David said.

“Bullshit.  Teddy bears in a forest?  The Ewoks weren’t exactly camouflaged, now were they?  I mean, you had green trees and green vegetation and then you had these brown and white and gray teddy bears running around and some of them looked like they had the mange.  I swear it was the fucking Care Bears in space!  I was expecting them to break out into some stupid song and start shooting stars and rainbows from their tummies at the Imperial troops.”

“Stars and rainbows …” Cody said in a hushed whisper, laughing softly.

“They don’t do that …” David said.  “They had their weapons plus they had catapults.”

“Oh!  Right!  Catapults in a forest?  That’s intelligent, David.  Let’s shoot a big heavy rock and … Oh crap!  Our rock didn’t go very far because there was a big tall tree in the way!  Let’s move this catapult over here, reload it, fire and … oh no!  The rock from our catapult hit another tree that was in the way!  A catapult in a forest is just dumb because the trees get in the way of shooting it.  A catapult in the forest that you can’t even turn or aim is even dumber.  If you don’t want to get hit by it just move a bit to either side.”

David finished his first piece of pizza in record time and began to talk with his mouth full, gesturing with one hand as he reached for another slice of pizza with his other, thought better of it, and took two pieces over to his plate this time.  David had become an eating debating machine, in that order.  When he spoke, his mouth opened to reveal pizza being destroyed and I made sure to avoid looking lest I see that which man was not meant to see and be driven insane for having done so.

“Catapults are not dumb.” David said, biting into his second piece of pizza.

“Catapults in a forest are dumb, especially ones without wheels that you can’t move around and that can only face and fire in one direction.  You can outflank an immobile catapult pretty easily.  Also … Remember what happened when the catapults threw rocks at the scout walker?  Huh?  The big rocks just bounced off the armor, then the scout walker turned to look in the direction from where the rocks had come from and then it blasted the catapult and the teddy bears who had been manning it.  The same thing would happen with the stupid little arrows that your teddy bears would shoot from their widdle homemade bows.  Oh, and how did the Ewoks know how to position the catapults to be in the right place to hit a scout walker?”

“The Ewoks lured the scout walkers into the fields of fire of the catapults.  How’s that for being teddy bears?  I think that shows a lot of intelligence on the Ewoks’ part and not a whole lot of intelligence on the part of the Empire.”

I looked over at Cody who conceded that point a little too quickly I thought.  David, seeing Cody spread his hands, took another bite and talked with his mouth full.  I had to avert my eyes to avoid seeing what he was chewing and I guess he took that as a sign that he was somehow starting to win the debate.

“You know what’s dumb?  What’s dumb is a bunch of Scout troopers flying through the forest on speeder bikes at really high speed.  The Ewoks just strung up rope between trees and used lasso’s to take those flying fuckers out, didn’t they?”

I shrugged my shoulders because things had just shifted into my favor again.  When David started to use profanity in his argument it was a sign that I was winning because he was getting desperate.  I pressed the points I had made home.

“Taking out bikers isn’t tough, hell, even teddy bears could probably do it.  However, those lassos and trip wires didn’t do very much against the scout walkers, now did they?  Remember when the Care Bears tried to trip a scout walker and it just pulled them all behind it as it continued to walk?  If it had been me in that scout walker I’d have just put the thing in reverse and done a tap dance on those Ewoks, making them into flat little mushy hair covered strawberry pancakes there on the forest floor.  Those walkers were blasting down trees left and right and cutting down Ewoks at will.  Do you know what my favorite part of Jedi was?”

“The part where Princess Leia wore the gold bikini and you jacked off to pictures of her because you wished it was your sister instead?”

Cody snorted but it wasn’t a comfortable snort.

David was getting desperate and it was showing.

“No, David.  My favorite part of Jedi was when the Ewok gets blasted and falls to the ground in a smoking heap and the other Ewok tries to get him up but can’t and then realizes that the first Ewok is dead so the second Ewok just sits there and cries about it, rocking back and forth.  I promise you that when I saw that scene back in the Summer of ’83 that I laughed out loud and clapped in the theater and so did a lot of other people around me.”

“That’s because you were all fucking retarded.” David said, his voice rising to a nasally whine.

“I’m not retarded, David.  The Ewoks were retarded and everyone but you hates those little furry fuckers.  The Imperials would have hunted them to extinction, gutted the bodies and made throw pillows out of the whole village of Ewoks.”

“You can’t hit what you can’t see.  The Ewoks were masters at hiding in the forest.  The forest was their home.  The Imperial garrison troops were the invaders.  Home team advantage, Impie.  Fucking.  Home.  Team.  Advantage.  Every time.”

“Yeah.  I saw that in the movie.  Big wooden tree houses with lots of big, bright fires burning.  At night.  Like that wouldn’t show up really well on infra-red or any thermal imaging hardware that the Empire had at their disposal not to mention the smoke during the day.  Hell, David, we have fire towers in forests here on Earth that look for smoke and call in people to go check to see if there’s a fire there or not.  The first time those spastic muppets …”

“They’re not spastic muppets!” David said harshly.

“They’re spastic muppets, David.  Hell, they can’t even dance … they just sort of waddle around and vibrate up and down.  Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas dance better than the Ewoks.  Hell, the kids on a Jerry Lewis Telethon can dance better than the Ewoks!”

Cody sucked in then to keep from laughing out loud.

“The point is, David, yes, the Ewoks lived in the forest but the moment that they lit those fires in their villages the Imperials would spot the smoke or see the thermal heat images of the fires and they’d either send in a squadron of TIE bombers to proton bomb the Ewoks into red mist or they’d just call an Imperial Star Destroyer in to take up a parking orbit and introduce the Ewoks to the oh so bad, bad magic of orbital bombardment.”

“That wouldn’t work.” David said defiantly.  “The forests are too thick …”

“Bullshit, David.  Bull.  Shit.  An Imperial Star Destroyer in stationary orbit above that Ewok village would equal furry Turbolaser barbeque.  Let’s see your stinky teddy bears throw spears or shoot arrows or catapult rocks up at an Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit that was busy blasting their village into burning splinters and smoking craters.”

“The trees are too thiiiiiick …” David whined.

“David … an Imperial Stardestroyer in orbit raining down an endless barrage of turbolaser fire on a small area of planet surface wouldn’t have to worry about how thick the forest is … it would defoliate the forest pretty quick, if it didn’t just set the forest on fire with all that firepower.  With all that wood around … can you say super forest fire?  I’d say that the resulting fire storm would be pretty fucking epic.”

About this time David started trying to stutter out a frustrated answer and I took that chance to impersonate Robert Duval’s character, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, from the movie Apocalypse Now in the famous beach surfing scene.  I put on a gruff voice and got stern with David.

“Can you smell that, son?  That’s the smell of burning Ewoks.  I love the smell of burning Ewoks in the morning.  Nothing else smells like that.  Smells like … (big long sniff) victory.  Imperial victory.”

David huffed angrily while he was trying to think of a comeback.

“Yeah.  I bet Ewoks taste just like chicken.” I said, taking a bite of my pizza.  “Especially if they’ve been deep fried by some heavy turbolaser fire from orbit.  Do you like your Ewoks crispy or extra crispy, David?  I like mine extra crispy, hell, I'd even settle for original recipe.  Turbolaser fire plus Ewok equals goooooood eating!”

“The Imperials didn’t eat Ewoks!” David stammered, red faced.

“Have you ever seen military rations, David?  They aren’t pretty.  Remember in "The Empire Strikes Back" … remember what Yoda said when he tried some of Luke’s rations on Dagobah?  What was that Luke was eating?  A breadstick?  Ewok on a stick is probably a real treat to the Imperials!  Make some Ewok burgers, some Ewok steaks ... Ewok nuggets ... Ewok stew ...”

“Yeah?  Well the Ewoks ate the Imperials, too!  They had helmets on display and they tried to cook Solo and Luke and Chewbaca so that proves that the Ewoks ate the Imperials that they captured, too!  The Ewoks were cannibals and headhunters and that made them bad ass!”

“Made them bad ass to any lifeform three feet high or shorter.  Look.  Whatever, David.  The point is that "Return of the Jedi" was probably the stupidest movie in the trilogy.  It should have been called "The Muppets Take The Universe" and that’s about as nice as I can get when talking about that waste of film.”

By this time Cody was trying his best not to choke on his food and drink and so it went, for ten more minutes and Cody had a ringside seat the whole time.  I’d like to say that I won that argument on logic alone but you can’t really win an argument about a science fiction movie and fictional characters, not on logic, and certainly not with someone like David Herrington.  Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun aggravating David that day, just to get his blood pressure sky high and see him turn bright red on his arms and cheeks … and that was just one day out of several that I purposely got under his thin skin.
 
While I knew him, I lost track of the number of times that I pissed David off so bad that he turned beat red and started sputtering out his replies or the number of times that I either made Cody spit out his food or blow drink out of his nose in order to avoid choking to death while he was a spectator to my nerd roasting of David.

Other than all that I guess that David was an all right guy even though I couldn’t really stand to be around him.  It took Cody a while longer to kick him to the curb and forget him and Cody’s decision to do excommunicate that fat retard from our group revolved around David’s ever increasing ability to be an immature asshole and to do stupid stuff … really stupid stuff; the kind of really stupid stuff that would eventually almost got us killed in heavy highway traffic not once but twice during the next four weeks of the semester.  

But then those are stories for another time.

Yeah, David was a fucking retard.

BACK