Coming Together Through Hatred
We can bridge this political divide by agreeing to hate certain folks.
Donald Trump is filling his cabinet with actual Ninja Turtles villains, by the way, who’s going to head the FBI? We were thinking of Liam Beneflect. Who is he? Oh, Fox News craft-services guy with a history of peeping into Macy’s changing rooms and ties to Russian coke dealers. You might remember his dad, he’s in prison for forging Pete Maravich’s signature on LSU memorabilia. What’s his security clearance? He’s not allowed in the mall? The National Mall? Any mall?
So, I think it’s important to remember that whether or not you’re hell bent on destroying the country, there are a few things we can all agree on, such as…
Let’s say you are on an important phone call, say with the DMV, and you’ve been on hold for two hours because you renewed your tags three months ago and they never arrived in the mail, and now you’re getting parking tickets at work because your tags are expired even though they actually aren’t, and even though you park on private property.
Or let’s say you’re talking to United Airlines because they lost your bag. Your carry-on bag. You brought your carry-on onto the plane, hence it’s a carry-on, but all of the overhead bins were full, and despite your protests you had to check that bag because it wouldn’t fit under the piece-of-shit seat in front of you, and as you were trying to jam it underneath the seat one of the flight attendants kept saying, “Sir!” over and over like a hyperactive autistic child and you then raised your voice to her and were afraid you were going to get kicked off the plane and be sexually assaulted by an overzealous narco agent, as everyone was staring at you, like, dude, fuck you. So, you checked the bag. It just so happens that prior to checking the bag you put your wallet into the front pocket because it makes your butt sore when you sit on it in your tiny airplane seat. So now you’re in Cabo, a foreign country, with no way of getting home, and your boss believes that you’re an alcoholic and this story is completely made up and you’re actually calling from a local Chili’s.
And let’s say you’re in the same room with your significant other, or any other person, and you finally get a representative on the phone, and you’re repeating the same story you’ve told five times by now and been transferred to an empty line, and you are listening to this bureaucrat, your phone pressed firmly against your ear, straining to comprehend their muffled voice, and, hallelujah, they finally seem to understand the question you’re asking, and they say, “Sir, you’re going to have to contact the special customs department, their phone number is-” and at this moment the other person in the room chimes with an articulated stage-whisper.
“Tell them that you already talked to the ticketing department,” or something else extremely unhelpful. How could anything they’re saying at this moment be worthwhile? They’re not on the phone with you. Are they clairvoyant? Could they just not wait to pipe up because nobody was paying attention to them for seven minutes? Do they think they have some unrealized crisis management talent? Why are they talking right now? At this moment, you consider them less than zero. Scum. Never to be seen again.
This is when you have to avert your gaze from them, actually twist your spine in a motion to literally recoil from them, and press your finger to your temple and say, “I’m sorry, I, I couldn’t hear you.” This is all the reason the representative really needs to hang up on you, and you were just getting somewhere.
And you happen to know that this person with their comment from the peanut gallery cannot multi-task. You happen to know that multi-tasking is a thoroughly debunked scientific misconception. You happen to know that nobody can multi-task, but the person who is now forcing you to multi-task by listening to an intense conversation and, simultaneously, their commentary about it, absolutely can’t multi-task. Like, she can’t even do dishes and talk to the dog at the same time. And now she’s putting you in this position!
The hubris to think you could contribute to a conversation you weren’t involved in, that you’ve thought of something the person who’s actually having the conversation hasn’t, well, regardless of your political leanings I think we can all agree that in these scenarios it should be totally legal to piledrive the person and not be charged with a crime.
Ok... I've been there. Only I generally get that far on the phone, and right in the middle of the conversation, the line goes dead.... bbbzzzzzzzzzzzz Start all over to go through the whole run around again.
One time, I got so ticked off by the whole ordeal that I sent the president of a major telecommunications company an invoice for my time, which was billed at my going rate! The invoice ended up being for a substantial amount, and it was based 100% on how much time I had to waste trying to correct an error that his company had made on my account. He didn't reply to me and he didn't pay my invoice. I guess it was "Ok for he but not for me."
Interesting post, Matt. Obviously, it struck a nerve with me.