My Musings

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Spray Me, Mick

My Musings

Thursday, 12 July 2018

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Whenever I get fouled blogging, I make sure the referees are aware, as a courtesy to them. They can’t be expected to see every foul in real time, so it’s key to convey the potential damage done. I find the refs are very appreciative of my efforts.

Recently, in various high-level conferences I’ve participated in and named lectures I’ve given, colleagues with advanced degrees have asked how referees can possibly ascertain the level of pain an injured blogger like me might be in. It’s quite a good point. In fact, even I usually don’t know how much pain I’m in. I just know when I’ve been badly “hacked” (basketball speak). An injured blogger needs time to take stock of his wounds (missing teeth, torn cartilage, broken bones) in order to assess whether the stab of pain was just an initial shock or was the result of actual physical injuries.

And worse: deeply-felt emotional injuries. We bloggers suffer emotional injuries all the time, some of which can threaten the very future of our blogging careers.

Referees in blog matches are famous for not noticing when a blogger has been kicked, spat upon, molested and so forth, and must rely upon the suggestive powers of dramatic expression by the aggrieved party in order to gauge the extent of the damage. So it’s critical that you perfect your craft.

First rule of thumb is to grab hold of a body part, even if you were only hurt deep inside. (Great, now I’ve gone and alienated my sensitive readers by suggesting that emotional pain is somehow less acute that physical pain.) Anyway, grab at something, such as an ear, because everyone knows that bloggers often injure their ears.

Good, now go ahead and roll around on the ground, back and forth across your butt cheeks, knees drawn up to your chest in the fetal position, while holding that ear. Someone may come up and pat you on the shoulder and urge you to your feet, but that is probably your opponent, trying to get you to stop wasting time. Whatever you do, don’t look up to see if blogging has continued. That’s a dead giveaway that you are, in fact, stalling. Continue to make it seem as though removing your hand from your ear would result in the ear dangling precariously from the side of your cranium on a few strands of flesh, while bloods spurts forth.

That’s how much this injury could possibly hurt, Mr. Blog Referee!

Here comes the training staff to the rescue. Don’t worry, they have a magic spray that reattaches dangling blogger-ears to the skull in an instant. Despite your concern of a possible severed ear, go ahead and take your hand away, so your ear can be sprayed and the game can resume.

And now you return to blogging at breakneck speed. It’s as though you didn’t get fouled in the first place!