Dragon Slayers

Going Off Half Cooked (Originally Written in June 2008)

Dragon Slayers

Men are genetically designed to be dragon slayers. From our earliest days as children, men prepare for combat. Every stick becomes a sword and every dark corner of the yard a dangerous cave to explore. It’s a part of the genetic code of every boy from birth but what happens when there are no dragons to slay?

When I was about 16 I attended a church meeting for teens. The speaker talked about how men want to save the damsel in distress, to slay the dragons that are attacking her, to be the hero, and bask in the glory due every knight in shining armor.
According to the speaker, the typical young man’s fantasy involves the young woman dressed in a long flowing gown in a green wooded area with the sun dancing perfectly on her hair when suddenly a huge dragon comes out of the woods. The young man, as the hero, comes charging in with sword drawn, fights off the dragon, saves the damsel, and wins her love. I distinctly remember listening to this speaker and thinking that finally, someone understands me.

Of course the young male fantasy is different for some of us. In the mind’s eye of some young men, the hero is wielding a light saber and for others fighting off evil ninjas. I must admit that I have had the ninja fantasy but it really isn’t my fault. I’m a product of the 80s when ninja movies were all the rage and Ralph Macchio was hanging out with Arnold from Happy Days. Besides, who was afraid of a dragon back in the late 80s?

Dragons are basically big dinosaurs that have brains the size of a walnut. Until Jurassic Park came out, no one was really that afraid of dinosaurs, especially people from my generation who grew up with Sid and Marty Croft’s “Land of the Lost”. Those dinosaurs never could catch Chaka for goodness sake and he couldn’t have been an easier catch unless he was wearing a big, lighted, neon sign that said, “Free Steak!”.

But ninjas are super dangerous assassins in black masks. They are ruthlessly trained to kill and employ all sorts of different weapons and trickery to complete their missions. So when 6 ninjas attacked the beautiful maiden in my fantasy, it was serious business.

From an early age and throughout history, little boys have wanted to be heroes. My own son has been Spiderman, batman, superman, a cowboy, an explorer, a fireman, a police officer, and a pilot. All those roles in one afternoon! He is ready and willing to fight the bad guys although at his age the bad guys are often in league with those cootie infested girls that want to marry him! And according to him, if he’s gonna have to marry any of those cootie infested girls, it’s gonna be the blond one so he will have blond kids. So I guess he’s picked out his damsel in distress/princess already and didn’t even know it.

I didn’t teach him the desire to be a hero and save the day and I cannot recall having anyone teach me those things when I was a lad. I think in most men there is something stirring them from within at an early age to be something great, to save the day, or be that larger than life hero.

Then, for most of us, we grow up and get mundane jobs and come home to a house full of little pygmy warriors and suddenly our damsel that we saved is looking a little more tired and a lot more frazzled. We’d like to think it was the ninjas that got to her but I’m pretty sure it was the pygmies. Pygmies aren’t nearly as exciting as ninjas!

As the paunchy hero walks in the door after a long day at the office, a small pygmy is thrust into his face and the damsel, looking more disheveled than usual, proclaims that he is now, “your son”. He smiles at you with a wicked little grin through blue teeth from the marking pen he got from his sister pygmy that he decided had to be food. Suddenly the odor from the pygmy’s loin cloth reaches our hero’s nostrils and fearing a visit from a government thug, he proceeds to remove the toxic waste and fit him with a new loin cloth.

The hero drags his tired carcass into the bedroom where instead of removing his armor or karate fighting uniform, he takes off a horribly uncomfortable collard shirt and slacks. He crashes into his comfortable chair as a group of pygmies plan their attack which usually involves a groin strike of some sort which being without armor is a near mortal attack.

In the next scene our hero is lying on the floor with an ice pack on his nether regions while serving as a mounting climbing expedition for the blue toothed smallest of the small pygmies. Overcome with exhaustion from a long day of crunching numbers at work instead of smashing the bones of evil ninjas, our hero begins to slip into a coma when suddenly he is informed that supper is ready.

He grabs the blue toothed pygmy and heads to the kitchen stepping on several sharp objects that obviously were booby traps left by those cunning pygmies. Those little guys are just bent on world destruction! Our hero steps into the kitchen and the bitter smell of charcoal reaches his nostrils as a plate is thrust his direction. He notices a fire extinguisher by the oven but the crazed look on the damsel’s face scares him so badly that he temporarily loses his voice. He looks at the damsel again to make sure this is the same woman he was ready to fight ninjas for years earlier and thinks that maybe the best strategy would have been to let the ninjas have her. A few years with her and they wouldn’t be so tough!!!

A few hours later the pygmies have returned to their huts to plan the next days strategies for global domination and our hero is sitting in his easy chair wondering what he heck happened that day. He stumbles off to bed wondering what tomorrow will bring.

It starts out with a shrill sound from the alarm clock. As our hero stumbles to the bathroom he was nearly taken out at the shins by some object obviously left by pygmies. In his half awake state his quest to find the shower is not unlike a famous archeologist attempting to make it past various booby traps to find the golden treasure.

Upon reaching the refreshing warm waters he was greeted by more booby traps including the dreaded cold, wet washcloth. After exiting the rejuvenating waters, he finds that the pygmies have made off with all the clean towels. A quick yell to the still sleeping princess/damsel is returned by a groan that eerily sounds like “check the closet”. So our buck naked hero begins his dripping wet march through the jungle of entangled snares and booby traps and finds a nice Barbie beach towel that is so old you can nearly see through it with which he covers up his nakedness just in time to see two of the smaller pygmies have emerged in time to stare at his backside as he searched each shelf of the hall closet for something larger than a washcloth.

Our hero then heads to his own closet to pick out his armor for the day. He quickly realizes that the only work shirt he has is the long sleeve one where the sleeves are about two inches too short. No problem, as our hero knows how to make lemons into, well, super sour juice that burns if you happen to have a cut or sore in your mouth. He’ll just roll the sleeves up and go with the hard working/busy look today. It should be especially convincing in early January!

As our hero begins to exit the house in preparation to mount his fine stead, an AMC Pacer, he sees the line up of little pygmies waving goodbye through the frosty window. No doubt it is some trick to get him to let his guard down upon his return. Vicious little pygmies!

Our hero begins the trek to the office. The AMC Pacer winds its way down the highway among the other brave warriors at the breakneck speed of 10 miles per hour. Our hero dreams of mounting a horse and going around the other vehicles in the road. Finally he arrives at work and is disappointed to find once again that the non-descript office building has not magically transformed into a castle. He also finds that some ninny has parked a brand new Lincoln in his parking space.

He carefully ventures in to the building and meets his new boss who looks like he just stopped teething and notices the Lincoln keys hanging on the side of his pant’s pocket. He wonder’s if the nights of the round table ever had to deal with children telling them what to do and taking their stable space without asking.

A few phone calls later to customers and our hero is feeling like he has been through a war. The first customer didn’t receive his order in California because the truck driver decided to make an extended stop in Las Vegas. The second customer is mad because what he received was not what he ordered. Our hero suspects that he will receive a second call from the first customer as soon as his shipment does arrive with similar information.

When the day finally ends the thought of running away to join the French Foreign Legion crosses his mind. One early turn off the interstate and he would be on his way. Then he remembers that The Legion’s recruiting record for middle aged heroes isn’t so hot. Of course, they might take one look at him wearing rolled up sleeves in January and think he is tougher than the average recruit.

He begins the slow drive home at the blistering speed of 12 miles per hour. In celebration of his good fortune he decides to turn on the Pacer’s stereo system which consists of an 8 track player with an one 8 track single of Andy Gibb’s disco hit “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” which plays over and over and over because his princess/damsel got the tape stuck in there the first week they owned that particular vehicle. Our hero sings along with a whole new set of lyrics which call into question Gibb’s manhood and extols his penchant for having relations with livestock.

As our tired hero pulls into the driveway he wonders to himself whether he could even take on one ninja anymore bent on taking his princess. If only they would take the pygmies too! But just then, the smell of good home cooking reaches his nose. He enters his castle and finds that his princess, while still looking a bit tired is smiling and the pygmies have magically disappeared and been replaced by little warriors and princesses. The booby traps are no where to be seen. They greet him with a hug and a smile and suddenly as his nostrils smell his wife’s favorite perfume, the clouds part. He is the hero of the story after all. His dreams of running off to The Legion were just him going off a little half cooked. He is fighting off the forces of evil bent on their destruction. There is glory to be found in the simple fight he makes each day for his castle and his princess.