Thou Shalt Not Spit.


 I am not one put off my too much, I have an adaptable palate and I am not to picky about too much but I have a very strict no spiting rule in my general area and my environs. My younger brother had no such rule and he was reminding me of an altercation we had as kids just today so I thought I should write what I remember and what he told me while it was fresh. My brother had a rather unique friend who conspired with him in a non-stop procession of weird, almost side show-esque endeavors. They taught them selves to chug soda at an amazing rate and they both learned to ride their bicycles backwards for long distance. Those and many others I thought were amusing or funny but basically harmless. The one that I could not stand was when they started a game of card-less solitaire wherein they would spit into the air and then re-catch the spittle. Abso-fricking-loootly horrid. I would beg and threaten him to stop but as is the case with most fraternal antagonism the irritation is the pay and he was making some very good wages. One night when we were in our room that we shared with Rob I on the bottom bunk and Matt on the top and with Rob in a Nyquil stupor in his freestanding bed. Matt and I were both awake and he thought it was funny to spit against the ceiling and then catch the fluid on its decent. I couldn't see what he was doing because it was dark and I was four feet beneath him but the spiting and slurping was driving me insane. I ultimatum-ed him from my Morlockian perch probably kicking the bottom of the mattress but that I do not recall for certain. I told him if he spit one more time I would take his most prized tape, the seminal 'Mac Daddy' by the incomparable Sir Mix-A-Lot, and I would smash it. I don't believe that 'Sir' Mix-a-Lot was ever really knighted officially so he was probably just usurping the title and its attendant duties and honors. Matt took me up on my challenge and spit again so I fulfilled the obligation of my verbal contract and threw his tape against the wall as hard as I could destroying it. But in the immortal words of Miracle Max – it was only “mostly dead”. Matt, probably feeling like the poor heartbroken Rancor keeper who lost his most precious thing in 'Jedi', gathered up the pieces re-spooled the tape and re-installed it into another cassette body and resurrected his album. The poor angels in heaven were probably only really starting to understand the misunderstood genius of Monsieur A-Lot when the tape was given a second chance at life and its soul was ripped back to its new mortal tabernacle with amazing NDE stories for all of the other tapes.