Napkin Doon’s Attic Treasures #6: RO-CKY! RO-CKY! RO-CKY!

At some point in my past, I spent real money on Rocky 4 trading cards.  And I am so glad I did!  How awesome are these?

I wish I could get a job writing these captions.  In fairness, you’d be pretty limited in what you could write with so little room.

My only regret is that these are not Rocky III cards.   I will stop whatever I’m doing anytime that movie comes on.  Late at night I like to pretend Rocky III is about me and interchange Rocky with myself, and boxing with blogging.  It works seamlessly.  My favorite scene is when Adrian snaps Rocky out of his funk before his re-match with Clubber Lang.   In the Napkin Doon version, I imagine I have just been running sprints on the beach with the Dimwit, and I just quit on him.  He’s left in a huff.  It seems as though I don’t have the heart to blog anymore after my mentor, The Lost Collector, passed away (sorry AJ, but you had to be in this scenario).  I’m standing on the beach staring woefully at the waves when the Lovely Wife approaches (if you don't know Rocky III by heart, well skip the rest of this post, and, shame on you):

Lovely Wife: Can I talk to you? I want to ask you something important and I want you to tell me the truth.

Napkin: What?

Lovely Wife: Why did you come here?

Napkin: I just don't want it no more.

Lovely Wife: If it's over because you want it to be over, I'm glad.

Napkin: I do.

Lovely Wife: It's just, you've never quit anything since I've known you.

Napkin: I don't know what you want me to say. I mean, what happened? How did everything that was so good get so bad?

Lovely Wife: What's so bad? Tell me, what?

Napkin: I wrecked everything by not thinking for myself. I mean, why couldn't AJ tell me where I was really at right from the start? He didn't have to carry me and lie to me and make me think my blog was better than it really was when it wasn't.

Lovely Wife: He never lied.

Napkin: Those posts weren't funny. They weren't, Lovely Wife. I never posted anything interesting. There was always some angle to hold on to my blog longer than I should have had it. I mean do you understand what I'm saying here?

Lovely Wife: I understand, but you've got to understand that he read your blog and that was his job--humoring you!

Napkin: Look, but that humoring don't help nothing. It only makes things worse. You wake up after a few years thinking you're a winner, but you're not. You're really a loser. So we wouldn't have had the blog as long. So what?! At least it would've been real, Lovely Wife.

Lovely Wife: It was real!

Napkin: Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are! I don't believe in myself no more don't you understand? When a blogger don't believe, that's it! He's finished, it's over, that's it.

Lovely Wife: THAT'S NOT IT!!

Napkin: That is it!

Lovely Wife: Why don't you tell me the truth?!

Napkin: What are you putting me through Lovely Wife?! You wanna know the truth? The truth is I don't want to lose what I've got. In the beginning I didn't care about what happened to me. I'd go to the computer, I'd run a Big Fun Game, I didn't care! But now there's you, there's the kids, there’s my Brycemas haul. I don't want to lose what I've got!

Lovely Wife: What do we have that can't be replaced? WHAT?! We’ve got boxes, we've got cards, we've got BINDERS! We got everything but the truth. WHAT'S THE TRUTH, DAMN IT?!

Napkin: I'M BLOCKED! ALL RIGHT?! YOU WANT TO HEAR ME SAY IT? You want to break me down? All right, I'm blocked. For the first time in my life, I'm blocked.

Lovely Wife: I'm blocked too. There's nothing wrong with being blocked.

Napkin: There is. For me, there is.

Lovely Wife: Why? You're human aren't you?

Napkin: Look, I don't know what I am. All I know is I'm a liar, and because of that AJ ain't here no more.

Lovely Wife: You didn't push him into anything! He was a grown man (I assume) and he did what he had to do! And you have no right to feel guilty for what happened. You don't! You were a blogger, and you did what you were expected to do, and you did what I and everybody else thought you should do. And you wanna tell me that those posts weren't real, that you were humored? Well I don't believe it! But it doesn't matter what I believe because you're the one that's got to carry that fear around inside you, afraid that everybody's going to take things away and afraid that you're going to be remembered as a hacker, that you're not a blogger anymore. Well, none of it's true! But it doesn't matter if I tell you. It doesn't matter, because you're the one that's gotta settle it. Get rid of it! Because when all the smoke has cleared and everyone's through chanting your name, it's just going to be us. And you can't live like this. We can't live like this. Cause it's going to bother you for the rest of your life. Look what it's doing to you now. The Dimwit thinks you can do it, so do I. But you gotta want to do it for the right reasons. Not for the guilt over AJ, not for the readers, not for the Gummies, not for cards or me, but for you. Just you. Just you alone.

Napkin: And if I lose followers?

Lovely Wife: Then you lose followers. But at least you lose them with no excuses, no fear. And I know you can live with that.

Napkin: How did you get so tough?

Lovely Wife: I live with a baseball card blogger.

Napkin: I really love you. I love you. [they hug]

Then I imagine a pulse pounding montage of me sorting through cards and doing typing drills.  I don’t know who should play Clubber Lang in this post, but whoever he is, he’s in big trouble now.