Street Fighter

When I was in 5th or 6th grade my family went to some resort in Oklahoma for one of my dad’s business conventions. My dad was in meetings all day, so my brother and I would go down to the arcade with my mom and some other friends whose dads worked with my dad and play Street Fighter II until our dads got out of meetings. One day while we were there this big kid who was probably an 8th or 9th grader was trying to hog the machine and was swearing at us and making fun of how bad we were while we were trying to play. I was a pretty easygoing kid so I didn't mind much when he insulted me, but when he insulted my little brother something inside of me snapped and I turned to him and said.
You'd better shut up! (Real tough like)

And he said, "You shut up fatty"

And I said don't call me fatty, or I'll beat you up."

He said, "let's go",

And I said, "You don't want none of this"

He said, "I want all of it."

So we started to make our way outside to fight. At this point I started getting scared. He was way taller than me and a lot older so as we were about to walk out of the sliding doors of the hotel, I yelled to my mom who was chatting with some friends "See ya mom." Obviously my mom yelled back "Wes, where are you going?" and I said, "outside with this guy" and she said "no, just stay in here." She didn't know I was about to go outside and get my butt kicked and I was thankful that she made me stay inside. But, the kid called me a wuss for yelling at my mom and he decided that he wanted to fight me in the hotel lobby. So, I put my tough face on and took a swing at him, which was about 3 feet from hitting his stomach. He countered with a kick to the shin and that was all I needed to fall down and start crying for my mom. The kid started laughing at me and made his way back to the Street Fighter game pushing my younger brother out of the way. I guess my brother decided that getting an extra game of Street Fighter in was more important than getting his brother's back. My mom came over and helped me up and we all went back up to the hotel room where my mom consoled me and gave me some ice for my mildly bruised shin.



(me circa 6th grade)