As anyone who reads blogs knows, a successful blog is updated frequently, at least twice a week. Well damn, I don’t have a successful blog because my last post is old news about the Downing Street memo which has gone no where thanks to the conservative media. But I do have stories of a person behaving badly. And it’s not W (though he’s just awful. President W, please stop saying “tourist” when you mean “terrorist.”
I’ve been traveling for my job, or I should say, I’ve been tagging along behind my boss while traveling around the country. We just got back from Chicago, and now he’s off for eleven days, during which time I expect my ego to make a partial recovery after being with him for 48 hours.
He’s a fun guy with a real sharp sense of humor. For a third grader, that is. Yesterday, as our little group was waiting to catch a plane, I proposed a new ad idea. Everyone liked it. Jokingly, I said, “Just call me genius.” He said, “You know what the definition for genius is?” I ignored him. He repeated the question, for my convenience, of course. “What?” I said, knowing a put-down was imminent.
“Flaming idiot.” Then he laughed his hoary laugh that always ends in a coughing fit.
He has many jibes like this that would make grammar school kids belly laugh. Adults, however, just stand back and look embarrassed for him, while thinking, “This man is an executive?”
Then there was this little gem: I bought a sleeping mask at the airport store, to which he quipped, “Good. That will improve your looks.”
Have I confronted him about his bad behavior? Yes. He has the perfect double-whammy response. “It’s when I don’t make fun of you that you should worry,” he said. “I make fun of you because you are so much fun and I like you.” Then he proceeded to tell me a story about a guy who he used to make fun of at work. One day, the guy screwed up big time and my boss stopped poking fun at him. Devastated, the guy resigned. He knew he had failed miserably and there was no going back.
Okay, that was one stupid guy. He quit because the boss stopped heckling him? If my manager would leave me alone I’d probably put the Prozac away and stop blogging all together. I might smile at cuddly little babies (no, who am I kidding?), I might hum happy tunes. I’d be nicer to strangers. I’d still hate W, of course. Some things never change.
I console myself because I know that often at the root of bad behavior there’s a Republican. Oops, I meant to say a person who’s been hurt badly. Like when Dick Cheney accuses democrats of preferring therapy over a more positive course of action like war, or when Donald Rumsfeld, um, opens his mouth. Someone just hurt them in the past and now they are behaving badly. Sounds reasonable, right?
Oh who am I kidding. People can just be SOBs for no damn reason. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go punish my liver and kill a few brain cells.
