The Tableau

Every now and again I like to mentally compile list of people that owe me apologies. I find this to be therapy in its purest form. I am fairly sure that I have yet to live a full day without making some kind of social faux pas that would land me on a similar inventory, so it feels kind of equalizing to know that there are several people in front of me in this daisy chain of sins against civility. Today I accidentally pulled out ahead of a car at the gas station. The other car was an off duty hertz and the driver flipped me off. I literally got the one finger victory salute from a guy that essentially a shepard of the dead. That made me feel bad, so to compensate for this and center myself I thought of all the people who have wronged me in my life.

I include a predictable grouping of dickstains that I went to school with, but I also like to think that I include them for legitimate reasons. Slighting my character isn’t enough to land on this spiteful catalog; you need to commit a greater offense. For example calling me a nerd would land you on this register, but not because I resent the statement, but rather that you seized on the most immediate and observable thing about me, you then announced it like you realized something and in the processes branded yourself an unimaginative tool box. I believe you owe me an apology for wasting air.

I believe that Italy owes me an apology for making food so damn delicious. Normally good food, let alone an entire country wouldn’t warrant my ire except in the scenario in which a.) Italian cuisine encourages binge eating and b.) none of it is good for you. Italian chow is all heavy carb shells stuffed with sausages drenched in spicy sauces and covered with the richest melted cheese in existence. In a time in my life when my metabolism went the way of my ability to keep up with modern music and my morning mantra includes standing in front of the mirror grabbing handfuls of my gut screaming “Get thee behind me Satan!” the last thing I need is an entire category of scrumptious fare that happen to be about seven thousand calories a bite.

When I was fourteen and entering the wider world of my high school I jumped headlong into competitive speech and debate and was immediately introduced to a body of people that where brilliant, fun, creative, and tolerant. It took me up to my mid twenties to come to terms with the fact that some of the first people I met in my formative years where of exceptional caliber and therefore set an unnaturally high standard for future social interactions. I take pains to surround myself with fine examples of humanity now, but when I think of the Fantasia Broom Army of petty, boorish, and cripplingly uninspired spanks I have met in my life, I feel that those people I considered to be friends then and now owe me one big assed apology for engendering in me a naive expectation level in the general populace.

Elisabeth Shue owes me one too. That bitch knows what she did.