Imagined Insults

Though I still plan on writing a longer post, this morning I was struck by the similarity between getting viewers onto our blog site and winning the lottery. Short of writing posts about abortion, Viagra, Jesus, jihad, or a myriad of other terms that attract the attention of psychotic blog trawlers, government agents, and who knows what else, we seem to receive only sporadic attention. This state of affairs is tolerable for the moment—I will not speak for Auditus—as I use this little online corner as a place to verbalize all manner of things that are personal and/or amusing. I have tried to keep my whining to a minimum and offer posts that might hold a reader’s attention for longer than three seconds. For example, here is a photo of another sushi loving creature to which I feel a certain kinship.

With that long digression covered, I want to write about good insults. By way of background, consider the well known instance when Norman Mclean articulated why he would never submit another manuscript to Alfred Knopf who had turned down the opportunity to publish Mclean’s A Riven Runs Through It: “if the situation ever arose when Alfred A. Knopf was the only publishing house remaining in the world and I was the sole remaining author, that would mark the end of the world of books.”

Here are a few potential responses to the slights one might have received over the years:


To the evil teacher in middle school: “Even back then I knew you were stupid—the intervening years have just helped to prove it. By the way, are you still living at home with your mother?”

To childhood bullies: “As a boy did you know that you would be underendowed?”

To a parent: “Your choice not to have orphaned me as an infant is a constant source of shame for me and an economic boon to my therapist.”

To the racist basketball coach: “Because you defended the rightness of white male privilege, I use you as my permanent mental image of a racist asshole.”

To an employer who did not offer me a job: “I am eternally grateful for not having to work under a boss as untruthful and banal as you are.”

To a lover who once spurned me: “The unappealing thought of sleeping with you is not something that can be remedied even with the help of staggering quantities of alcohol, a thick bodysuit, and temporary blindness.”

To the egotistical friend of an old roommate: “I think you mistook being contentious with being clever.”

To the family therapist: “You don’t know how relieved I am to find out that you are as clueless and crazy as I remember you.”