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When I was a kid, we used to play Greeks and Trojans. We'd make wooden swords and cardboard helmets and act out the classic roles of the Iliad. The part I remember most about our battles was when I tripped over a curb and one of "the Greeks" ran over my head with his bicycle.
It is possible that incident had a long term affect. You might even see evidence of this in this column. What made me think of this is that my wife and I recently saw an unusual combination of movies -- Troy and Dodgeball. It was late and my memories of the films are a bit blurred, but here's how I remember it. The Greek King Agamemnon, played by Ben Stiller, owned a national chain of fitness centers called Globo Gym. He wanted to take over a smaller chain of gyms owned by King Joe of Troy. King Menelaus was Agamemnon's brother. King Menelaus had a very beautiful wife named Helen who was played by Christene Taylor, which is odd because in real life Christene is Ben Stiller's wife. When two of King Joe's sons, Paris and Hector, went over to the Greek's gym to check out the chicks there, Paris fell in love with Helen because her "milkshake brought all the boys to the yard." Paris and Helen went back to King Joe's gym together, causing King Menelaus to get upset and team up with King Agamemnon in his effort to take over Joe's gym. King Joe, of course, protested this takeover, and everyone involved decided to resolve the battle by engaging in a brutal and savage game of dodgeball to take place in Las Vegas. King Agamemnon assembled a massive team. His star player was a man named Achilles who was fearless and always glistened with sweat in a way that would cause many women to completely ignore their husbands and boyfriends for hours on end. The Greek team, so assembled, crossed over the Aegean Sea to Las Vegas, where they were to battle King Joe and the Trojans. What followed was a series of incredible series of battles set up in an elimination format. In one of the funnier scenes, Paris, played by Orlando Bloom, lost his armor, had to wear an embarrassing leather outfit, and got hit upside the head with a wrench. That's not really true; I just said that because I don't like Orlando Bloom. Regardless, a lot of people received serious head injuries, which is pretty accurate based on my own personal experience of the war. One of the most dramatic battles was when the Trojans took a row of giant dodgeballs, lit them on fire, and rolled them down a hill onto the Greeks of Globo Gym. You would think such an attack would be considered illegal. However, it was not a contingency that had been considered in the rulebooks and had to be allowed. With this dramatic attack, the Greeks seemed close to defeat, but they had a final trick up their sleeve. The Greeks -- and this is where it gets bizarre -- gave the players from Joe's Trojan Gym a wooden horse. Joe and team were a little confused about what to do with it and wondered why on earth anyone would give them a wooden horse in the first place, but they decided to keep it and take it into their hotel rooms in lieu of the fruit baskets they had expected to receive from management. The wooden horse contained a hidden camera, which allowed the Global Gym Greeks to spy upon the Joe's Trojans and learn their strategies for the final round. The final round resulted in a sudden death contest. In a surprise ending, Achilles was defeated (pun intended) when he was hit in the heel with a dodgeball. At this point the Greeks won and the Trojans lost, but the Trojans had bet a lot of money that they would lose, so they won anyway. The movie ended and the credits rolled, reminding us that the screenplay was based on the aforementioned Iliad written by Homer Simpson. Afterwards, my wife, played by Jennifer Aniston, and I, played by Brad Pitt, went home and lived happily ever after. That may not be exactly how it happened, but hey, that's history for you. |
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