damonjustisntfunny.com

I didn’t go to high school. My parents will tell you I was homeschooled and that is certainly what it looked like from the outside: homeschooling. But I don’t say that; I say: I didn’t go to high school. My folks are afraid that by my not calling it homeschooling I am asserting that I didn’t learn anything during my four years away from the classroom; conversely, I am afraid that if I do call it homeschooling the expectation is created that there was a school-like environment at the home and I was taught by my parents from the front of the living room on a makeshift chalkboard with my sister and dog. This was not the case. Mostly my mother encouraged me to learn things by buying interesting books and laying them auspiciously around the house and my father helped out by picking up anything I happened to write and correcting it with a very large red pen. My father, to his credit, even corrected the things I didn’t write, such as the quotations I had included in a critical essay from “The Catcher in the Rye“, which (though it was an accident) did wonders for my self-esteem. He was harsher on J.D. Salinger than he ever was on me; apparently Mr. Salinger has a lot of work that remains to be done on his novel. I pointed out to my father that it was a prize-winning piece of literature that he had just earmarked for editing and he simply pointed out that obviously I needed to do a better job of making my citations more obvious.

During my non-schooling I did learn plenty of stuff; just not math, science, history, geology, social sciences, French, Spanish, Russian, theology, law, medicine, or gym. Ben went the opposite route: he learned everything that I didn’t. While he was entrenched in theological literature and bio-chemistry, I was tapping maple trees and building a barn. We would get together in the summer time and he would mention that not only did he learn that God created the heavens and the earth in seven days, but also that carbon dating posted the Earth’s age at 4.5 billion years. It is no wonder he is both confused and learned.

For example, I am sure Ben learned about Beowulf. I did not. I had never heard of Beowulf and, if I ever bring a lawsuit against my parents for an imagined failure in parenting, I will mention Beowulf as my chief witness. For those of you with young children I suggest that, in lieu of future lawsuits, you tell your children about Beowulf immediately — before it is too late.

My lack of knowledge of this key figure in Old English literature only became known to me when I was in college and I went to a play and one of the actor’s names was Beowulf. I, who was with another good friend of mine at the time, pointed his name out in the program and said judgmentally:

“Bee-o-wolf? That’s a stupid name; how can anyone know how to possibly pronounce that. I think there should be a law against people putting fancy names in program books without the proper pronunciation included in the Appendix. Or it should just be changed altogether. Bee-o-wolf? Please. Your new name is Bob. Like it and live with it. This is America; we are speaking English here.”

My friend said: “That’s Beowulf? Like the poem.”

I looked at him. I had never heard of anything called Beowulf — I barely knew what a poem was.

“The Old English poem?” he continued. “Beowulf? You’ve never heard of it?”

I hadn’t. I said:

“Surely you must be joking. I have neither heard of Beowulf nor have I read it and I am skeptical that anyone else has either. This is probably something you learned in that sheltered elitist public school you attended in the richest town in New Hampshire. Honestly, who has heard of a Beowulf except the wack-job in this stupid play?”

My friend, who was an actor himself and not afraid of a crowd, stood up at that moment and turned to face the audience in the theatre, and he said, quite loudly:

“Raise your hands if you have ever heard of Beowulf.”

In the auditorium, every hand was raised but mine.

If you have never heard of Beowulf do not be ashamed. You are not alone. I have begun a small group called Beowulf’s Anonymous to Me. You can join. After that slightly embarrassing incident in the theatre I went out and bought myself a copy of a newly translated version, which was supposed to be very terrific. I didn’t think it was all that terrific but I didn’t read all of it because the poem is written as two stories rolled up into one and that bothered me a little. When I got to the end of the first story I had had enough so, even though I was not finished, I ignored the rest. For those of you not yet in the know, Beowulf is an action-figure who goes swimming, kicks everyone’s ass, has a enormous feast and orgy and then does it all again, and then again, and then dies (I think). That’s about it.

I am reminded of Beowulf in this moment because the amount of food consumed by Ben and me at Navene’s Restaurant that night would have rivaled any feast Beowulf’s posse could have put together. Our food consumption was an epic poem in and of itself and Ben’s portion alone could have fed the Mongolian Tribe that Beowulf was liberating from Grendel. Ben ordered the meal with the meal on top, with a side of meal, and afterward he ordered a four-person brownie sundae meal.

For most mortal non-action figure-types, being served more food than one can physically consume is not a problem. The leftover food is boxed up and saved for a later date or it is simply thrown out in the trash. However, Unspoken Rule Between Ben and Damon #243 states: Thou shall not, ever, under any circumstance, leave any food you have been served on your plate until your esophagus has, itself, been completely filled and putting more food into your mouth only results in the food falling back out and onto the floor or down your windpipe where you will then choke and die — thereby leaving the food undigested and, ergo, wasted.

This being known, but unspoken, when Ben couldn’t finish his Brownie Sundae, I waited for the projectile vomiting to begin. Instead, though, he swallowed hard and clenched his teeth and breathed a shallow breath and whispered:

“Let’s just sit here for a while.”

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