Wanted: Rapier Wit

Encounters like those of my last two posts trigger several stages, much like those of grief, except stupider.

The first is the "smacked in the face with a lollipop" stage. This expression comes from my brother. Once, he and his girlfriend got into a fight at the mall. Skipping over the sexist reasons that they were at the mall in the first place, the sexist descriptions of her behavior, and his general sense of entitlement because he was spending the money, we come to a point in the disagreement at which he called her "bitch." Moments before, he had bought her one of those big, stripey lollipops, the ones about the size of your face, and she had been slurping on it. When he called her "bitch," she hauled off and whopped him upside the head with it.

"I didn't know what to do!" he told me. "I had never been hit in the face with a lollipop before. Was it going to leave rainbow colored stripes on my face? Was she going to continue to eat it? How do you react to being smacked in the face with a lollipop?"

Well, she drew back to hit him again, so he grabbed it out of her hand, threw it on the lovely and sanitary floor outside of the food court, and left her there as he headed back to the garage for his car.

So, that is Stage One: Stunned. This isn't happening because no one in their right mind would do something like this; and, yet, hear I am facing this. They did not train us for this scenario.

Stage Two is rationalization. You have accepted that this has, in fact, happened. Now, you try to understand why this has happened. You try to figure out what may have provoked such behavior. You maybe try to take some blame on yourself, telling yourself that perhaps you deserved it. You try to use this understanding to get you through the next stages, but it can seldom prevent the next stages. Sometimes it can, if you have two rational people involved and the slight is small and clearly a misunderstanding. If you have realized that the slight was, in some way, intentional and intentional as a slight, well, I'm not sure if the next two stages are unavoidable.

Stage Three is hurt. The other person has hit you, metaphorically speaking. Even if you take it on the chin, you still feel it. You do, after all, have feelings. I have tried to stay in this stage, turning it all in on myself, blaming myself, wallowing in depression and self-loathing because I want to do anything that I can to avoid the next step.

Anger. Goddamn them! How dare they say those things! How dare they project their issues onto you! How dare they! Fuck them! And you know, now that you think about it, this is entirely keeping with a negative side of their nature that you had always ignored! Assholes!

Anger can stick around for a long time. A LONG time. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Anger, for instance, allows you to have a more complicated understanding of the other person if you had been unwilling to see their more scathing side. Anger, often coupled with hurt, allows you to protect yourself from walking into the same situation again. Anger can make you stronger. Anger can make you stick up for yourself or someone else. Anger, however, has to be controlled. There is a reason that revenge is a dish best served cold. If you act on the anger, you have to be calm and calculating, otherwise, it will consume you.

Anger, then, is Stage Four. From here, you can go in two directions -- ok, maybe three. The Final Stage is, of course, forgiveness. Goddamn, but forgiveness is difficult. Forgiveness means that you have learned your lessons, internalized them, and detached from the emotion of the situation. At least, ideally you have detached. I'm not sure that detachment is actually possible in most people's world; but you have reached a place where the whole incident doesn't really have an impact on your day-to-day decisions. You have been able to say "Dumbass, be gone!" And the dumbass is, in fact, gone for the time being.

Actually, the Final Stage may not be "forgiveness" so much as "banishing the dumbass." I like that better. It seems more attainable, and (at least to me) imply that the dumbass could return, but that isn't your fault because he's just being the dumbass that he is and you will probably have to banish him again.

If you are a person who can go straight to banishing dumbasses, please share your secret. I am not so skilled. I want to hop straight to banishing the dumbasses, but I constitutionally must to go in other directions, first.

Quite often, I find that I must first become entirely exhausted by the anger. I rant and rave, I plot bloody revenge, I write blog posts. In my younger days, I did stuff for which I am still embarassed. Alcohol wasn't even involved in some of those youthful incidents. So, I know this part of the process very well. Than, when I can no longer take the force of the anger on my body, psyche, and emotions -- and everyone around me has turned my anger into a joke, and runs from the mere mention of my name -- I just give up. I'm beaten. You win, here is your forgiveness or whatever the hell it is you want, I'm hitting the showers then moving to Timbuktu or outer Mongolia or even Connecticut. I hear they have pizza there.

Right now, I'm exploring other, perhaps wiser and more effective options. In particular, I'm considering something that involves success, sweetness and light as an effective tool of passive revenge. This "rising above it" method means doing a good job, being a decent person, and skipping the bullshit, while also being aware that, in doing so, you are showing up the person who pissed you off. The first part: not so difficult because it's what you want to do anyway. The second part is where the danger lies. If you are still thinking in terms of revenge, then you cant really go straight to that Final Stage. You've kept the dumbass around in order to exact a sideways sort of revenge, so he isn't really banished.

Then, again, you might have reasons to keep dumbasses around, revenge or not. Maybe, for instance, you aren't in a position to banish because you have to continue to interact with them because they are your boss or advisor or brother. Maybe, you feel that you need them around to remind you the consequences of having dumbasses around. One dumbass whose techniques you know, blocks the way for other new, dumbasses; or, one dumbass serves as a constant reminder of the ways dumbasses behave, so you can use the dumbass as a measuring rod for new applicants for the role. Yet another reason may be that you need to allow the dumbass to lurk a bit longer until you can effectively shut him down -- or attempt to -- at least once, to make your point. Making your point will be the act of banishment (understanding, of course, that dumbasses always try to come back from banishement).

In my particular case here, I know that the people involved in both scenarios can say nasty, mean things about me to important people, and that I can prove them wrong by just doing my stuff and being sweet to everyone I meet. I stand and fall on my own, and anyone who would take their word over my evidence is someone who should be banished, if possible, as well. In one of my cases, diddly squat will shut him down. I spent years trying before I seized my opportunity and escaped, and I had to escape because he was such a first class dumbass. I just won't walk into any situations again where I may encounter him. Lesson learned there. Dumbass, be gone!

In the other, the one from the last post, well, I must make one -- and only one -- attempt to register my view of the situation in an effort to shut it down. If it doesn't work, so be it. If it does, great. You see, I know that we will be in a similar sitation again in a few months, and I fear that he will try this shit again. All I need is a comeback. I need something that can be said sweetly, with maybe a touch of self-deprecation and a huge dose of humor, but that will make my point.

For example, I have a friend who has a friend who constantly tells a self-serving and malicious story about an incident that took place over a decade ago. After hearing the story one too many times, my friend said, "you know, that's a great story! One that gets better, but not more accurate, with every telling." Point made.

I know another woman who became sick up to here and beyond with a colleague going on and on about an award -- and I mean on and on beyond simply being proud and amazed and toward being obnoxious, self-aggrandizing, and insulting to other people. After hearing the bragging one too many times, she turned to one of their companions and said, "you know, I heard that the person who receives the award is always everyone's third choice." Now, frankly, I'd LOVE to be everyone's third choice and win a prize; but that wasn't the way this guy saw it, nor the way the statement was intended. The statement was intended to tell the guy to shut the fuck up. You know what? It worked.

That second example is a little mean -- and there were other reasons to be mean in that case because the award thing was just part of a whole obnoxious package. I rather prefer the joviality of the first. I need something like that. Something that says, "I don't hate you, I just wish you would not keep telling this insulting story over and over in the most improper company. It is, in fact, making you look like the bigger fool." Only not so obviously, and with much more wit.

You see, I really need a rapier wit. Barring that, I will take any suggestions on snappy comebacks!

Eventually, I can make this all a funny story; and that's when I can banish the dumbassery.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This post was inspired by comments on my last post, and also by the discussions about "Bad Habits" and "Anger" at Belle's Scattered and Random. Hang in there, Belle, you have lots of company right there with you!