Learning the Hard Way

Learning the Hard Way
by eugene gordon defcon
Who can fit a whip in their mouth
Besides a snake?
Not me
I learned that the hard way
On the set of Indiana Jones
The new one
They were filming a scene
(I was observing at close range)
Harrison Ford cracked his whip
At this guy playing your typical sinewy Nazi guard
But he misfired
The whole whip came straight for my face
I opened my mouth to scream
A gaping, raw-throated scream
Wide like the mouth of a snake
Or a river
But it ended up just coiling around my neck
In a kind of loose bolo-tie configuration
Like a long lazy spaghetti pet
Resting on his master’s shoulders
But the incident was very frightening all the same
So I went straight home
And with the help of some science buddies
A couple of computer programs
Three large pizzas
Some “study pills”
And a one-fifth size scale model of the movie lot
We determined that the whip wouldn’t have fit