Proverbs 15, Verse 28
"A good man thinks before he speaks;
the evil man pours out his evil words without a thought."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
The year was 1988, or '89 maybe. I don't know. Maybe it was '91. It's hard to keep track when you get to be older, and you judge the passing of the years by what body-style Chevy Caprices the local police department was using (they'd just mustered in the first of the "upside-down bathtub" cruisers in 1991. I remember seeing one parked on the street during my fifth grade graduation. That's how I know I was in fifth grade, and that's how I know that I think I might have Asperger's, and a law enforcement fetish.
Anyway, my sister and I were fighting outside, as we often did. I didn't mind making a spectacle of myself in those days the way I abhor public displays now. I'm one of those rare actors who absolutely hates being the center of attention. I have to be told, repeatedly, to stand center stage by the exhausted director. For most performers, finding center comes naturally.
Right, so, back to the front yard of my parent's house. I'm however old I am, and she's three years older, and we're fighting over Christ knows what. Who got to sit in the front seat, who got to have a pony for Yom Ha'Guiliani-- whatever it was. Kids get so worked up over dumb shit, have you ever noticed that? One minute you're sitting there, eating your rice and beans and the next minute some kid is having an absolute shit over the fact that he didn't get his face painted by Nylon the Clown at the local Jiffy-Lube. Kids. You know I love 'em!
And speaking of kids, I was a kid once. There I was, on the front lawn like a jerk, yelling at my big sister. Boy, did we have some hair in those days, let me tell you. Hair to spare we did! Boy, howdy, did we. I looked like Moe from the 3 Stooges. Yessiree, I rocked that Beatles-ass shit for near on thirteen years. It was only at the old Bar Mitzvah did I think to part the shit-strands, and I guess nobody in my family dared suggest anything of the sort to me for fear I'd have a fucking aneurysm or something. Kids. You know they're always having fucking aneurysms or something!
So, back in time we go-- into the old DeLorean back to my parent's front lawn and I'm just going ape, like a tapir. It's funny-- it's pronounced "tape-ier" but I don't know-- looks like there should be an extra letter in there. What the hell do I know, though? Not much about much, and I think that's probably pretty obvious to you. Must be what keeps you coming back to this trough, you disgusting little pig, you! You squealie little dealie! Reading this makes you feel better about yourself! I GET IT NOW! SO I'M THE FAT GIRL YOU GO TO THE MALL WITH AND YOU DON'T MIND THAT I EAT RANCH DRESSING OUT OF THE BOTTLE WITH MY FIST BECAUSE NEXT TO ME YOU LOOK HOT!
Meh. I'm okay with that. An audience is an audience.
Now, my sister and I, we could really go at it. I'm sure you've got stories about how you used to push your little brother's face into the gravel driveway until he had to have little pebbles and bits of glass surgically removed from his gum-line and that you once doused your cousin in propane and cause a five alarmer and got sentenced to juvie until you were 21 and then had your criminal record expunged so that you could get a job at that local middle school and have nobody be the wiser, and I think that's great. Good for you, Stan! We've all got stories. Did you know that EVERYBODY'S GOT AT LEAST ONE NOVEL IN THEM? Well, everybody's also got Gram-positive coccus-shaped bacterium in their mouth, too, but I wouldn't go around bragging about that to Terry Gross now would you, FISH-FUCKER?!!!
So we're doing the old tit-for-tat thing there outside, and it's nice weather, see, and people are milling around, walking their dog or their streptococcus and everything is going fine. Except these two kids are fighting. And it doesn't take much to disrupt suburbia. No. It doesn't. Did you know that I once called the cops on the guy who came to read our water meter? They jumped on his ass, too. Classic.
And the thing to remember about fighting is that, when you're all sweated up and getting into it, you're not really thinking about what you're saying. Especially when you're seven. Or eleven. Or however the fuck old I was. Come to think of it; you're never really thinking no matter how old you are, because people just don't think, do they? No, we're not very good at that. We're all kind of basically idiots when it comes to being smart, I do believe. And that's okay, because there's one thing we human beings are really good at; and that's annoying the piss out of each other, and it's not so easy to do that if we're hemming and hawing over every little grammatical positioning of each little phrase we may come to utter, or not, because we're too goddamned busy thinking about it. And, when push comes to shove, there's nothing in the world like telling your sister at the top of your lungs in the middle of a quite spring warmth of a gentle southeast Pennsylvania neighborhood to go dip her vagina in duck sauce.
