by Will Kriegshauser

Breaking news from Man Cave Daily—America has gone soft. Hockey is being tenderized. Football is being massaged into flag-football. Nobody boxes, anymore. MMA? Yeah right, it’s like 90% dry-humping and 10% real combat. Also in the news, recently, America is statistically the second-most depressed nation on Earth (thanks, France).

So…coincidence? Nay, we say! The link between both headlines and the cure to the latter is very simple—we don’t duel, anymore. We’re not speaking in metaphors, either. We literally mean the kind of dueling where two guys who look like Ichabod Crane square off and try and kill each other in a gentlemanly fashion. Now, back in the day when dueling was cool, everybody more or less followed a treatise called Code Duello, invented by Irish people, which laid out the rules for anybody set on dueling.

But we’re not back in the day, anymore (sad as it may be), so if we’re going to save America’s whiny ass by suggesting that we bring back dueling, than we have to update and condense the Code Duello into a simpler treatise we can all use right now…or in the next 20 years, whenever the government starts taking our advice.

-There shall be no limit to any perceived slight of honor

See how sad our nation’s fencers have become without bloodthirsty opponents?

What we mean here is that no perceived slight is too petty for a duel to resolve it. Somebody step on your toe in line at the gas station? Duel! Hot girl not respond to your drunken (and surely romantic) advances? Duel her male relatives! Fart smell in your general area and you’re pretty sure it was that guy right there! Duel in an open-air environment!

This might sound like ton of dueling, but if we waited for everybody to start insulting everybody else’s wives, which was the type of stuff the old Code Duello handled, we’d never have duels, and that’s no fun. Basically a witch hunt mentality is what we’re trying to cultivate, here.

-Aside from disputes of honor, dueling shall also be presented as a method of settling all other types of disputes as an alternative to the contemporary court system

C’mon, easy one here. What we’re saying is that who wouldn’t rather just literally fight over something like a shady bequeathal than go broke trying to settle it in the courtroom? It’s faster, and it’s cheaper. Tribes in Africa do it all the time. Probably.

-Duels can be performed at any locale agreed upon by the two principles

Girlfriends at ten paces? Have at thee, wretched cockerel!

This doesn’t really make a difference except make the spectacle way more badass, depending on the people involved should they choose to have their duel inside a Tibetan monastery at 20,000 feet above sea level, or on the deck of a battleship, or at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance right when old man McFly wallops Biff right in the kisser…because this is the future and we’re assuming time travel is possible by then.

-Only weapons deemed non-lethal to the extent of five blows shall be used

We know, we know. It’s not a real duel if somebody doesn’t get killed. But we’re looking at this from a legal standpoint, and the government would never legalize it if it always involved a death. We don’t buy what The Hunger Games is trying to tell us about the future. What we’re saying here is that you can use anything that won’t kill the other person if you hit/shoot/stab/cut them five times with it. Why five times? Because if you can hit/shoot/stab/cut somebody with something five times and they’re still alive, than whatever you’re using sucks enough to be called non-lethal.

-Only the challenged shall dictate the weapons to be used

Gold revolvers are an odd choice of dueling weapon, but they guarantee only people of means will challenge you

This one’s straight out of the Code Duello, and it basically exists so you can back out of manning up if you get challenged by just choosing something stupid to duel with like a couch cushion. Alas, it’s on here so @$$#0!%$ can’t just use the duel to keep beating the crap out of people.

-No apologies accepted after principles have agreed upon the duel

You’re already past the point of no return. Suck it up and hurt somebody.

-Duels go on as long as they have to

Ok, we’re totally copying Fight Club here, but it just makes too much sense. What we’re saying is that if somebody goes limp or taps out, the duel’s over.

-Each principle must have a second

Allow us to explain. Back in the day, they were really adamant that each person in the duel had to have a ‘second’, who was basically an assistant tasked with doing a bunch of crazy stuff, like determining the time and terms of the duel, and preparing the weapons, or even attempting to reconcile with the other guy’s second to try and end the tiff before the shots were even fired. The second could be anybody of your choosing just so long as they were in the same class as you were. We’ve decided to keep this one for traditions’ sake. Furthermore, to underscore how useless a second would be in this day and age, all seconds must wear butler suits and bow as if a serf living in feudal Japan.

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Will Kriegshauser is a writer whose mom and editors are proud of him. You can find more of his work on The Smoking Jacket, FunnyCrave, Cracked, or just reach him at will.kriegshauser@gmail.com.

Will knows his dueling weapons; he previously figured out which of Batman’s Cool Gadgets Would Actually Kill Him. –>