Vestigial Asshole Syndrome

When someone tries to be better than they are, I think it’s really very cool. But it’s a difficult thing to do. If it were easy, then I may not think so highly of it. Things that come easy carry less honor than those which require great effort. It’s the fight that defines us as being at our best. When, even if we fail, we can take pride in knowing that we have done as much as we could.

This post has nothing to do with all that shit.

Because this failure was inexcusable, embarrassing and made me want to dig a hole and stick my head in it.

And stay that way forever.

A neighbor came out. I heard her above me. I assumed from the sound that it was a certain neighbor and called her by name.

It wasn’t her. Another neighbor said “No, it’s me,” but wait; that is hardly the embarrassing part.

I had just awakened from a nap.

That’s no excuse.

But I had just lit a smoke and definitely wasn’t fully awake.

She asked, “Do you eat fish?”

Without a fucking second’s hesitation I said, “That’s a loaded question.”

Time stopped.

It fucking stopped, I tell you.

Her mouth hung slightly open.

Her eyes were halfway between outrage and dawning disbelief.

I said, holding up thumb and forefinger, “That’s a little bit of a joke,”

And apologized.

Time did not resume its inexorable passage. The universe was slipping into some sort of paradox. It would not end with bang nor whimper, but a flash of disbelief and fragmented sentence which would never be believed anyway.

Or did I yet retain some control? I tried to speak. I said, “Not myself today,” and I must have sounded sincere because I heard the trailing edge of a sentence not spoken by myself: “…okay.”

Time had resumed its damnable passing. It did not help my queasiness. Had I really said that?

She said she was trying to lose weight. She’d thought herself to be picking up breaded codfish but grabbed the parmigiana instead.

My cigarette was almost done. I’d gotten nothing out of it. I needed a way out of this situation! Hell, I needed an exit ramp off a highway quickly piling up with traffic behind me.

I didn’t bother considering what fish parmigiana was, or if anyone was really bold enough to make such an aberration, much less mass market it. I just said, “I can’t help you there,” and finally it was over.

I had to come up with a name. To have slipped so badly said something about me.

Vestigial Asshole Syndrome; that’s what I’m going to call it: Once an asshole, always an asshole.

Fuck. I really said that to her. She provided a graceful way out. She’s obviously been through worse.

But I doubt very much whether she will ever speak to me again.

I wouldn’t.