How to Defend Yourself...NOT
“Oh Shait” yelled my father, before the knife even made contact with my arm. I felt it cut, then seconds later, saw the blood run down my arm.
“Dad, look what you did!” I yelled, more pissed off than I’d ever been.
“Don’t tell your mother” he pleaded in self preservation. Â
“Like she is going to miss this” I replied, applying pressure to the wound with my apron.Â
“ Maybe she no see” he said hopefully. As I pulled the apron away, I noticed that the wound was not overly deep—however the bleeding was significant.  “ Dad, I have to go take care of this, I will come down once I’ve gotten some bandages on and made the bleeding stop”.
“ You no need bandages. Use bleach and theese “ he said handing me a roll of masking tape. “ Theese way your mothur no see” he added. Incredulously, I looked at him, and saw he was totally serious in suggesting I apply bleach to the 4 inch fresh cut on my arm, and to wrap it up with masking tape.
The blood was starting to saturate the 3 layers of apron, and was starting to drip onto the floor. I looked at my father in disgust ,rolled the apron around my arm again, and then stormed upstairs. Moments earlier, we had been working away making strudels for the market. My father, engaged in a story about some street fight he had avoided, says to me “punch me and I show you how I fiche him”….as he held a knife in his hand. Perhaps I should have been wiser, and used the 15 years of experience life had bequeathed me until then to know that the combination of Luigi Longo, a knife and a street fight story was sure to yield some unpredictable result, but in the light of his enthusiasm, I said “what?” turned towards him, and my father yelled “punch me”…never one to piss away an opportunity to inflict physical pain on Luigi Longo, I lifted my arm to punch my father in his generous gut, when suddenly the arm of the madman (my father) struck out, knife in hand and inflicted a four inch cut on my arm before any punching occurred. What kind of father cuts their child, then tries to get them to avoid getting in trouble from his wife? The one and only, Luigi Longo.Â
