Hello there everyone. I’ve retreated to my man cave for a while to work on book two. To entertain you in the meantime, here’s one of the College Survival Guide columns I used to write for the local paper.
Dear Pat,
I recently had a rough relationship with a friend.
Actually, I was punch-drunk in love with the guy. We were on the verge of dating and did typical things like talking for hours on the phone, hanging out together, flirting, and beyond.
Everything was going great, but no one was making the first move even though we had talked about dating. When he finally asked me out, I later found out that he already had a girlfriend and was playing me the whole time. As you can imagine, I was angry with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.
Anyway, the next time we hung out I desperately wanted to ask if the rumors were true, but I never did. As the day went on, I kept thinking about all the lies this guy had told me and couldn’t imagine how anyone could be so heartless. Well, he kept making fun of me about one thing or another and I finally snapped. At the time, I was holding a one pound block of Colby cheese and this guy wasn’t quick enough to take cover. I had no intention of severely hurting him, but I’ve never seen someone go down that hard! I nailed him right in the kidney so it took him a few minutes to recover. I felt pretty bad afterwards, but he was feeling better the next day.
So now that the story is out of the way, I can ask you my question. Should I feel bad now that this guy has a giant bruise and will probably be peeing blood for the next month?
Sincerely,
Kristin
Only in Wisconsin could we have a problem like this: cheese-related domestic
abuse.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few Wisconsin laws on the books relating to cheese-specific crime. Wouldn’t that make a great CSI spin-off? “This week on CSI – Dairyland: our heroes struggle to unravel a baffling second-degree lacticide….”
First, I have to say that this letter cracked me up, Kristin. The funniest one I’ve gotten in a long while. This is because it contains the two fundamental elements necessary for comedy:
1) Something horrible happening to someone else.
Mel Brooks said it best, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” There’s something buried deep in our brains that makes us enjoy the traumatic suffering of strangers.
It’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but it’s true. Think of every joke you’ve ever laughed at. 99% of the time what makes you laugh is something horrible. If a joke begins “An American, a German, and a Norwegian go fishing….” You already know the end. We end up laughing at the Norwegian because of his stupidity, or because something horrible happens to him. Or both.
Don’t believe me? Think about every Loony Tunes cartoon you’ve ever watched, or any episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Still, don’t believe me? Check this out.
Case closed.
2) An element of the ridiculous.
Ridiculous things are funny. Like a monkey wearing a dress, or a clown having sex, or an English major with a job. In this letter, the ridiculous element is a girl is kicking a guy’s ass with a chunk of cheese: pure comedy gold.
I mention all of this because the humor of this letter really obscures the issue. So let me present a different, humor-free scenario:
There’s a guy and a girl. They hang out, flirt, “and beyond” doing the relationship dance. Later, the guy finds out that the girl already has a boyfriend. She’s been lying to him and leading him on, and generally taking advantage of his trusting nature.
So the next time they’re together, the guy is seething mad. He keeps it under control for a while, but eventually a comment makes him lose his cool. So he takes whatever is in his hand: a coffee mug, a wrench… whatever. Then he hits her with it. Hits her so hard that she falls down and can’t get up for several minutes.
Now the question: should the guy feel bad? Seems pretty straightforward to me.
So yeah, Kristin, you should feel bad. Because, when all’s said and done, you took something non-violent and made it violent. Someone hurt your feelings and you hurt their body. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter that he’s a guy and you’re a girl. It doesn’t matter if you use a wedge of gouda or a baseball bat. It doesn’t matter that he seems to be, on all accounts, a total prick. That’s just not a good thing. Feel bad. Apologize.
Now I’m not saying that what he did was any better. He abused your trust, and, in my opinion, that warrants him a severe, figurative, ass-kicking of some sort.
Unfortunately, you’ve forfeited your right to creative revenge by opening up the can of whoop-ass on him. Too bad, I could have written a great how-to get revenge column for all the jaded lovers out there. Oh well.
Oh Survival Guide, how I miss you….
What do you think, folks. If I offered to write new advice columns here on the blog, would anyone be interested? Let me know in the comments below.
Be good,
pat
