Rather than bitch and moan to myself about the impossibly negative person I just had to deal with, or write up a blog post detailing why it was such an unpleasant conversation, I'm going to cherish that interaction.
Know this, oh piece of grasshopper dung that I just walked away from:
I'm going to record, as best I can, your snide, insulting and passive-aggressive phrases that made my blood boil. Your hardly-veiled insults and dismissal of my intelligence, experience, wisdom and even my courage and commitment - all of these I will use.
I'm going to make note of all the aspects of manner and mien that conveyed the pomposity, self-congratulation and arrogant condescension for which you are so rightly famous.
I'm going to capture all the various expressions you used to say, in six different ways on each of the six subjects we discussed, "I did it before you and I did it better than you".
I'm going to distill your words to their bitter, vicious essence and I'm going to use them.
For you see, I am a writer.
Which means that you, disagreeable and infuriating, puffed-up and arrogant, obnoxious and grandiose as you are, YOU have messed with the wrong guy.
I have an opening for someone just like you in an upcoming scene. He's not the main villain; that would be too much of a role for such a twisted little man such as you. No, he's a side character, a sub-plot, a pimple on the ass of my protagonist.
My hero has a lot of big, important things he has to worry about and overcome, but he also has you - a fundamentally insignificant little bit of pestilence, which is nonetheless irritating and painful.
When you are in my book, you will have a cologne even more churningly aromatic, a bellyroll even more protuberant and coffee-stained, a fashion sense even more tone-deaf and hideous, and ear hair only slightly longer. I make these changes so that you can't plausibly recognize yourself and sue me.
However, when you are in my book, your words, hurtful and hateful, will be just as you said them to me. They are perfect gems, in their own blistering way. I have no fear of you recognizing them; if you were capable of recognizing such words as having come out of your own mouth, you never would have said them in the first place.
I will shape a world where you, in all your poison-edged reality, will have a permanent place of display. You will live as an exemplar of all that can be horrible in humanity, and anyone with a scrap of wisdom will look at you and strive to be as unlike you as possible.
For you see, I am a writer.
Don't. Fuck. With. Me.
7 comments:
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"Any resemblence to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" *whistles* oooh, look over there...
ReplyDeleteWill certainly have to include that disclaimer, especially if I really sharpen the knives.
ReplyDeleteAh, the privileges of being a writer.
ReplyDeleteI want a t-shirt that says "be nice to me or I'll put you in my novel."
Revenge is a dish best served on the page. To be extra safe, especially whilst sharpening the knives, just change the gender and/or race. You're good!
ReplyDeleteI ran across an arrogant, pompous individual in the middle of November, 2008. The wrong time for her to cross my path.
ReplyDeleteShe became a Chief Researcher character, not important enough to merit a name, in my NaNo novel - with all the characteristics she had been so... generous, I suppose... to display in our interaction.
And satisfying it was.
I like your last line.
Love this - its something I often do in draft emails then delete before anyone can see them - virtual high five my blogging friend :)
ReplyDeleteWe haven't met, have we? If not, I want a t-shirt, too =-)
ReplyDelete