Pissed: Day Seven, or Revenge is a Dish Best Served with a Merlot (Which Means It's Not Much of a Dish)

Don't get mad, get even. Right?

Not really. I suppose if one is actually injured, one's career derailed, one's character defamed as clearly defined under law, then well yes:

Wait by the trail and pounce.

But, if as in my case last week, it's really just a bruise to the ego, a moment of disrespect, better to concentrate on grading stories and preparing for the fantasy league draft. One mustn't let all that testosterone go to one's head. (Make that "ascend." Good to remember where it originates.)

So many of these "man" moments just get you into trouble. I was talking with E. this morning about the football players missing in the Gulf of Mexico. She wondered why they didn't turn toward shore once the wind started to kick up, and the waves to rise.

"Well," I said, "when you've got a small group of guys, the courage of the most courageous is the courage of the group."

And then I thought and then I said. "Or, to put it another way, the foolishness of the most foolish is the wisdom of the group."

Because who wants to be the wuss who says I'm getting a little scared; let's get the hell out of here.

It's a man thing. You wouldn't understand. Wait a minute. Yes, you would, my very darling dear.

So we circle back to the notion of the absence of anger and the concomitant necessity for revenge. Heck, I'm not even angry, just pissed off, and the latter phrase makes a fine distinction, rich in connotation of the maleness of the impulse, the hyper-sensitivity.

"You talkin' to me?" That kind of thing.

Also, how many of us have carefully and obsessively planned on handing it back, slight for slight, and then actually carried out that plan? Sounds like work to me. Better just to behave in a generally disagreeable way to everyone, always staying just a little bit ahead of the game.

Postscript:

Yeah. Yeah.