Sucker Punch … a bit like David and Goliath

There’s a saying - “a good big’un’ will always beat a good little’un.” This is not always the case.

Think about it. The Philistine army had gathered for war against Israel. It was like Friday night
outside the Dog and Duck. The two armies face each other, camped for battle on opposite sides
of a steep valley (or car park).

A Philistine giant measuring over nine feet tall had a nasty habit of coming out every day and
mocking and challenging the Israelites to fight. His name was Goliath.

One day David, the youngest son of Jesse, was sent to the battle lines by his father to bring back
news of his brothers. (What kind of a father is that? Forget about being traditionally the first
ancestor of Jesus, why didn’t he go himself? Back home painting his toenails? Think about it –
Jesse! Wait a minute, how many kids did he have? Must have had some lead in his pencil.)

David was probably just a young teenager at the time. While at the front line, David heard
Goliath ranting, “Come on you cissies. Come and fight me. I’m really big.” David responded,
"Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of God?" Whoa! Nobody’s
going home unbloodied after that level of insult.

So David volunteered to fight Goliath. It took some persuasion, but King Saul finally agreed to
let David chance his arm against the giant. (“Yeah, let him have a go. It’s not like Saving Private
Ryan is it?”) Dressed in his simple tunic, carrying his shepherd's staff, slingshot and a pouch full
of stones, David approached Goliath. The giant hurled threats and insults. David hurled a stone.
Bingo, the stone hits Goliath on the bean, Goliath goes down and David kills him.

And so it was that I was in this pub in Lincoln, England, that had a punch ball machine. The pub
runs a weekly competition and customers are encouraged to put some money into the machine,
the punch ball is lowered, the customer hits the punch ball as hard as he or she can and a score is
registered on a screen. The customer with the highest score at the end of the week wins a lot of
free beer.

This particular day the score on the screen showed 773. I didn’t know whether this was a good
score or a bad score but I suspect that if I had a go it might register anywhere between 0 and 100.
Zero probably.

A tall, robust and muscular young man came into the pub with his current paramour and, clearly
in an attempt to impress, hit the punch ball about six times before the top score rose to 775. Then
he displayed what appeared to be a mating dance in front of his girl.
A little fat guy standing at the bar drinking beer with a friend had watched this spectacle unfold.
He put down his beer, strolled to the machine, put some money in, hit the punch ball once and
returned to his beer.

His score? 813. Knockout!

Rick Crowe

http://mywords365.com