Stories from a Pop Culture Past: Stand By Me

Two for Flinching. Those were words I grew to loathe with my entire essence in grade school. TFF was a concept that hadn't hit my school until 1986, and I can thank one particular movie for bringing this form of torture into my life: Stand By Me.

Now this game really sucked for me because, like Jerry O'Connell's Vern, I was overweight and I always flinched. I mean, always, so my arms between my elbows and shoulders were purple at the end of a school week from getting wailed on every single day. And when your arms are purple, well, getting punched full bore hurts like hell. And given the fact that in addition to two for flinching, there was also the deadly game, and I can tell you, you really don't want to move your arms.

In adult life, well, if someone or a group of people were doing that to you, well, you probably flat out deck them, but when you are a kid, you play by those stupid rules. If I had been smarter and braver back then, I should have hit someone in the face and when they got pissed at me, told them that they should have flinched. It could have worked. At least in my mind it would have.

Of course, I am very hard to bruise now... I could probably get hit in the arm with a sledgehammer and have just a little light bruising. Not that I want to put that to the test mind you, but I've taken a lot of hard shots to the arms in the past 15 years, and really haven't bruised... so perhaps all that punching did toughen me up.

And with some of the other things that happened in that movie... like I could have gotten a leech stuck in my underwear like Wil Wheaton, or have a huge fat kid barf blueberry pie all over me, because let's face it, those two things would screw you up for life.

Tags: game, two for flinching, stand by me, wil wheaton, 1986, movie, bruising, pop culture, past, corey feldman, jerry o'connell, river phoenix