By the time I reached college, I had not earned enough achievements. If Xbox achievements existed back in my day, I would have registered a big fat zero. In other words, I had caused so few waves in high school, I didn’t have one school fight under my belt. No one had swung at me, told me I was yellow (that was Marty McFly’s trigger word to start fighting) or even tried a crane kick on me.

Luckily, my freshman year of college changed all that. I remember it all so vividly. My friend and I went to visit some girls I knew from home and being a restless young man at the time, I decided to leave. It was 10:05 pm on Friday, October 10th (told you I remembered vividly) and I was walking home briskly. Driving along the street was a car of three obnoxious high school boys that were yelling wildly outside their window. I did what any reckless college freshman would do, and flipped them off as they drove by.

I continued home as if I was an invulnerable superhero, and reached the stairs of my dorm, when my Spidey senses acted up. I heard three people coming up the stairs behind me, and before I knew it, I was on the ground wondering how the heck I got there. A little dazed and certainly confused, I walked up the stairs to find a few of my dormmates asking me what happened. I told them about the high school thugs, the bird flipping and how 40 guys ganged up on me and I held them off for 20 minutes before finally succumbing. (I told you I remembered every detail like it was yesterday.)

Immediately, the Batsignal lit the college town sky and all my dormmates Avenger Assembled. We found a car, gathered up any weapons we could find (plastic bats, fake maces and of course my Iron Fists), and any available superheroes that weren’t making out with their girlfriends. We went Tommy Lee Jones Fugitive style hunting for the three instigators. (We only wanted to punish the original three, not the gang of 40.) We searched the sleepy college town for them, but couldn’t seem to find them. Since we couldn’t find them, we decided to allow the local law enforcement finally do something besides break up illegal snowball fights in town (yeah, that was real).

Unfortunately, the cops found them before we could, because if they hadn’t they would have found three boys tied up in knots with stars dancing around their heads.

The cops asked if I could identify the one that punched me, but of course I couldn’t because my Super Vision was malfunctioning, so they got off free…that time. But if I ever saw them again, they would get what was coming for them.

It’s funny the tiny triggers that started our war. That sucker punch was a trigger that set me off and woke me up. But it was such a little thing. For me, it was some high schoolers making a little noise. For them, I was just one finger off from welcoming them to town.

It seems like everyone has a trigger that wakes them up and makes them act. For instance, I just saw the movie Nobody and it was about a guy that was a former FBI or Special Force something and he was in this undercover life as a boring accountant or something. But then somebody takes his daughters kitty cat bracelet. You don’t mess with the daughter’s kitty cat bracelet. That triggered him to take down a whole mob.

If only they would have known.

For Avengers Infinity War and End Game, they were fighting over 6 jewels for a fancy glove.

In Die Hard, for John McClane it was a bunch of people messing with his wife’s Christmas party. For Hans Gruber, it was a barefooted, tank-top wearing, Roy Rogers quoting policeman from New York messing with his lazy Christmas vacation on a beach and his investment portfolio.

The reason why I do my job? The same reason Hans Gruber took over the Nakatomi Plaza. At the end of the day, I want to sit on the couch, collecting .2%.

Ironically, when I come to work (the conflict), my day doesn’t start until I do something with my finger (the index, not the middle). I find the time clock, enter the last 4 digits of my social security number and put one finger down on the fingerprint scanner. The fight starts when the clock says Punch Accepted.

ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Punch Accepted Ben