The Class Loser

I have two great regrets in life. In elementary school, there was a sweet and shy girl who was mercilously picked on, and I contributed.

Every school has them. The child that is on the absolute bottom of the food chain. The one to whom all crap slides. Their names become insults, slang for instant putdowns. I am sure you can, and are, recalling them now.

We all terrorize, and we are all terrorized, but this person is at the bottom.

Why? Some of it may have to do with peculiar looks, social status, inability to defend oneself, but I think there is an even more important reason. These people are better than the rest of us. There is a goodness inside of them that prevents them from preying upon others. And in that vacuum steps the raw cruelty that only children can muster.

I imagine she is beautiful. She is Maria Bartiromo. She married a surgeon. She drives a ridiculously expensive Mercedes, and she passes me on the side of the road, and looks at me with decades matured pity.

But this too is self serving on my part. She needn't any of these things to be better than me. She always was.

Our guilty pleasures

Everyone should have at least one small vice in life. Mine are coffee, smoking a pipe ( not a Richard Thomas allusion) and of course, video games.

Swank just wrote about reprimanding a friend of his nephew who lipped off to him during a BTB. Though clearly in the right, I would have loved to heard the conversation if he did indeed call the kid's father.

"Yeah, I was in big team battle, you know Containment by the teleporter, when your son swore at me for stealing his kill, not to mention my own nephew betrayed me three times, before I booted him...."

You can feel the parental gravitas ebbing away by the second.

Years ago, I was in Walmart talking to the father of one my friend's, when four young dudes who knew I gamed, asked me how to get past a level in Perfect Dark. I went from lamenting the price of crude, to demonstrating how you off goons with a RCP-120 and secondary cloaking feature, physically acting out the movements until I caught the quizzical look he gave me.

Another time, I was in an EB, and there was another closet gamer perusing the stacks, when his cell phone rang.

In an instant, he adopted his professional voice, and with a tinge of hesitation said, "Uh, I'm out of the office right now, but I'll have my assistant get those reports to you."

I immediately mock the guy, taking out my imaginary cell phone and say "Yeah, uh, I'd like to help with you with that, but, uh, I'm at EB games right now, and am heading over to the mall to get a slushy."

We both laughed, cause we have all been there. It could be worse. Instead of gaming, it could be crack, adultery, or even golf.

We all need at least one vice in life. Choose well.

The Town Drunk

I live and grew up in the same small town. When we were kids, we would often reference the town drunk. He was a valued part of conversation from taunts to lore. He drank aftershave, you know?

The town drunk seems a quaint ideal now in the age of crack and meth. Sure he was disheviled, and of course, a drunk, but he worked odd jobs, and never hurt anyone.

It seems strange how this epitome of disgrace would hardly merit notice now.

A buddy of mine and I were just talking about him thirty years ( I suppose) after his death. We commented there was a certain honor to him now in retrospect.

Here's to you, Rob.

Bruce was wrong

Halloween in summer