Sticks of Death

I’ve been an amateur practitioner of the art of nunchaku since I was 9. My first pair of nunchucks were made of black plastic and foam with golden dragons printed on the grips. Eventually, I got tired of the wussy foam covers, so I unsheathed the hollow, plastic handles from their wimpy, foam prisons. In doing so, I had transformed my unthreatening marshmallow grips into terrifying sticks of death. I destroyed everything in sight. No tree or pole was safe from the maniacal swinging of my death sticks. Until, of course, I broke them on the corner of the shed in the backyard. Defeated and depressed, I was forced to grow up a nunchuckless boy, whose dreams of battlefield valor had been dashed on the hard, plywood corners of reality. I swore then and there that I would never again be suckered into buying a cheap, kiddie-version of Bruce Lee’s baddest weapon!
Fast forward to 1998: Marc Tolentino, one of my roommates my freshman year of college at PCC. He had no qualms about bringing contraband on campus and into our dorm room. Illegal CDs, DVDs, hotpots, and…oh yes…nunchucks! No visitor to our room was safe from the occasional wayward swing of those trusty nunchucks. Kevin Kelley spent many an evening crouched in the corner due to a low swing of the chucks by his own hand. Scott and Michael would occasionally come over and Michael would grace us with a demonstration which we would all immediately attempt to imitate. Amazingly, by the end of the year, most of us could use them decently without dropping them on our bare feet or whacking the inside of our elbows. We were grand masters!
Recently, I’ve procured a pair of hardwood nunchucks which I occasionally swing around for old times’ sake. I’m pretty rusty so I’m usually not swinging them nearly as fast as I used to. Last night, however, I got a little cocky and was going a little faster than I ought to. It wasn’t long before I cracked my elbow and dropped them on the floor, barely missing my bare toes. Clutching my elbow, it was all I could do to keep myself from throwing those nunchucks out the window! As I sat there in my pain and self-loathing, I’m ashamed to say that a nice new pair of golden dragon marshmallow sticks started to sound pretty good.
No offense, Bruce, but I’m only half-asian, so cut me some slack.