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November 23, 2004
Wine as Pain Killer
Well into last night's box of wine I was reminded of the time I was injured in a bullfight. (This is true, I only post fake comments)
I lived in Portugal and the village down the street had a street bullfight. (I lived on an island covered with small villages some only a few hundred yards/meters from each other and each one had a festival during the summer. During the festivals they would let bulls loose in the streets and the males from around the island would show their manliness by chasing the bull, slapping it as it ran past, using an umbrella as a makeshift matador's cape, etc.) One of the guys that worked for me lived in a house that overlooked the area closed off for the bullfight and was having a party. I grabbed a bottle of cooking wine and headed down.
I showed up, pretended someone else brought the cooking wine and dug into the food and the better tasting wine. We all got pretty drunk before the bullfight even started, per tradtion. Unfortunately that mean a few of the guys decided to "fight" the bull when the stret fight started.
That was not a good thing. We weren't supposed to participate in the bullfights because of the possibility of injury and could get in trouble at work if they found out we did. Then there was the fact that most of the guys worked for me. Somehow thefolks at work figured that made me liable. Still, we had dipped into the cooking wine about the time the fight started, so I wasn't really in any condition to worry.
Until one of the guys tripped, fell and was trampled by the bull.
Then I started to worry a little bit. I walked out into the street and told the guys not to taunt the bull, they could get into trouble.
The guy that was trampled, however, dramatically outdid me, "It's not big deal. I'm fine. All I got was this." He opened his shirt to show a huge puffy mark in the middle of his chest. It looked to me like it was turning purple, but he insisted it didn't hurt.
This reinvigorated the other guys and I. We hung out in the street yelling at the bull daring it to even think about messing with us.
It did.
It came charging at us and we scattered in all directions. I ran to the right. The guys that ran to the left were the unlucky ones. Especially Dave, the guy that slipped in a pile of bull shit.
He hit the ground pretty hard and grabbed the bull's attention fairly well. I guess the human flat on his back in the middle of the street looked vulnerable for some reason. The bull charged.
He somehow managed to squeeze between the bull's horns and throw his arms around the bulls horns. He held on in order to keep his body from being gouged, but the bull had another move in mind. It moved its head up and down slamming Dave to the ground each time until Dave finally let go. Then it moved on.
I got all the guys together and told them that they should stop messing with the bull, they were getting hurt, and we could all get some sort of reprimand once they found out at work. That's when the bull came back around the corner. We scattered.
This time it followed me.
I flew over a fence with grace I was previously unassociated. Then I landed on a discarded tire.
I fell to the ground in pain even through the liters of wine.
Thinking I had sprained my ankle for the first time I admonished myself for calling akle sprainers pussies all those other times. It hurt. I could barely walk.
Once the bullfight ended I rode my bike back to my house and wrapped it in an ace bandage, then went back to the party.
Once there someone asked me how my ankle was. I told him it hurt. He called me a wimp. I laughed, drank more wine and told him it wasn't all bad, I had a new, extended, range of movement.
Yeah, I know now that meant it was broken.
Posted by calculatoronfire at November 23, 2004 10:25 AM