“I Double Dare Ya”

[June 19, 2025]  For some reason, I seemed to have a bunch of time on my hands as a little kid. That meant my friends and I were also given opportunities to get into trouble, often by starting fistfights with each other. Preceding any fight, however, there was the obligatory taunting: sticking your tongue out, name-calling, “you hit like a girl,” and double-daring some other kid in some way. As a first grader, I still enjoyed saying “oh yeah?” or “I double dare ya!”  But I was still not yet eight years old. My first-grade teacher, upon observing one of these taunts one day, gave me some good advice that I did not understand. She told me that “taunting will not win you any fights.”

She was right, of course. Like my good friends, we were eventually able to figure out that taunting the other guy has little value, especially as you get older. Taunting can be valuable if the other guy is demoralized or reacts without thinking … both unlikely. On the flip side, it can anger a bully and make them more aggressive and stronger in attacking you … more likely. The risk associated with taunting an opponent far outweighs the gains it may bring to someone. That kind of talk does make a person feel better, at least initially. I felt better in the first grade when I did it, a whole lot better. And that’s why all of us did it.

“I double dare ya” was common, so sometimes we resorted to “I double dog dare ya.”  Now that was a strong challenge, the biggest being the “triple dog dare.”  One day, while we were home, my friend Wilson dared me to jump over an upended foot locker in my neighbor’s carport. I was a good jumper, and so I took a couple of fast steps and I was up in the air, unexpectedly snagging my foot on the foot locker handle, causing me to do a beautiful ballet pirouette turn with both arms out. Hitting the concrete floor, I must have looked spectacular and with such glory as I slammed hard. I broke my humerus (the upper arm bone) in two places, just above the elbow. Wow, it was a performance that I will never forget. The best part after getting the bone set and a plaster cast was that I could show off how tough I was, and friends could write their names on it.  Wilson had double dog dared me and I was a sucker for falling for it.

As kids, we wanted to show how brave we were to all the other kids. When it was time to act properly under threat of a dare, I think basic survival instincts may have kicked in. Oh yeah, we did some crazy things, out of sight of our moms. Moms don’t like to see their kids doing dangerous and stupid stuff, like jumping off a railroad bridge into a river or throwing beer bottles at cars. But we did anyway. I remember one time when Wilson and I got into a knockdown, dragout fight over him saying my dad fights like a “sissy;” maybe he said, “fights like a girl” which was much worse. Yet, there were always hard and fast rules about name-calling, taunts, and insults. For example, you couldn’t say bad things about anybody’s mother or sisters. Standing up to anyone who dared hurl insults, even the hint of an insult about them, was itching for a fight. And we had plenty of fights.

In the French castle scene from the 1975 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the French Knights in their fortified castle hurl some high insults and taunts, and very funny ones, at King Arthur, who stands at the foot of the walls.  This scene is some of the best blend of satire, comedy, and parody I’ve ever seen.  Yelling down at King Arthur, the French guard says, with a heavy fake French accent, “You don’t frighten us, English pigdogs.  Go and soil your bottoms, sons of a silly person.  I blow my nose at you.  I fart in your direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.”  As these Frenchmen at the castle sling insults, they double down by hurling animals over the castle walls at King Arthur and his merry men. King Arthur’s response was, “Run away. Run away.”  I wish I’d seen this movie as a kid so I could have extracted some top-notch taunting language.

Of course, kids are kids, and they will do the darndest things. Like when I called one of the junior high bullies a “fat slob,” and something I shouldn’t write about.  I was not good at insults then, and this is why I’d have loved to see the Monty Python movie and learned some tart insults and taunts. I was promptly whacked a few times upside the head, and I quickly apologized for my mischaracterization of the bully’s older sister, who worked at the school as a teacher.  My Grandaddy (my mother’s dad) took me to the side one day to give me some hints about this. He came from the “good Christian” perspective, saying it best to avoid poking people in the chest unnecessarily. He was a good man, and he was right.

The 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” is about the many trials of kids growing up in the 1940s in small-town America. The producers must have seen my life. The life of the central figure is 9 year old Ralphie is laid out in a series of stories, one of which Ralphie “double dog dares” his friend to stick his tongue to a flag pole on a cold winter day. As expected, the kid has to be rescued. Such a classic. Ah, the experiences of a kid in an average town.

“I double dog dare ya.”  This is the classic taunt, very effective on a young boy’s mind. It works until the teenage years, when girls enter the picture.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).