I Brushed My Teeth Today

“You have to give Dave a chance. He’s such a good guy.” It was true, because his name was Dave.

 - Amelia Gray, On the Lives of Ghosts

Some of my favorite prescription medications come with warnings against operating heavy machinery. I, of course, calmly comply with such reasonable cautions. The heaviest machinery I operate these days is my electric toothbrush. Until today anyway. Today did not begin well. I forgot to recharge it and it was inoperable. I swear, that’s never happened to me before. So here’s the conversation I had with myself.

Me: I think this says more about the dangers of prescription drug side effects than it does about how I may be falling behind the curve of evolving technology.

WISIMH:  Or an even less likely possibility: I’m losing my mind.

Me:  Nobody is losing anybody’s mind. I did plug in the damn charger dock, I just forgot to put the damn toothbrush in after I finished brushing my damn teeth.

WISIMH: As I stand here moving my hand all around brushing my teeth I have realized that since heavy machinery is neither sonic nor rechargeable, it is arguably easier to operate steam shovels than my toothbrush. Counterintuitively, both can be exhausting to operate manually.

Me: (rather smugly) Therefore, as seriousness of side-effects go, it’s much more likely that forgetting how to operate light machinery can result in greater harm than operating heavy machinery on drugs.

WISIMH:  Conclusory statement.

Me:   How cool is it that my inner voice can include hyperlinks inside my head?

WISIMH : But surely, crashing an airplane with hundreds of passengers causes more harm than having to manually brush one’s teeth?

Me: Have we met? Cannot I measure the percent of a glass half empty to NASA human flight tolerances? Here’s a scenario off the top of my head. Because I’ve had to spend so long manually brushing my teeth, my whole right arm is sore and weak but I haven't noticed that yet. My right arm is so weak that when I get out to the kitchen and boil water for my coffee I lose my grip accidentally and when I pick up the copper pot filled with boiling water, my grip fails and it drops on the floor…

WISMH:  You will find any excuse to throw a pity party about your espresso machine being in the shop and how you're losing the will to live without your morning latte.

Me:  Anyway, I drop the pot of boiling water and scald myself and the pot lands on my toes. Then, horribly, I stumble and knock the coffee cup onto the floor where it shatters into deadly shrapnel dipped in coffee grounds, embedding right into the scalded part of my legs and my burned feet. I stagger up somewhat disoriented, bleeding profusely thanks to the doctor-approved ratio of prescription rat poison in my blood. Being stoic, stalwart and stubborn, and plus suffering typical side effects of my medication that diminishes my judgment before caffeine intake, I make a poor decision. Instead of calling an ambulance I stagger to the car and speed to the ER.

Surely, you can see where this is going. Before I get to the hospital I become disoriented from unbearable pain and weak from loss of blood. I loose control and crash into a school bus full of nuns and special educational orphans singing songs about going to see Shamu. Then, I then perform a flawless unconscious PIT maneuver and tip the now screaming yellow bus off the bridge overpass and where it literally splashes onto a fire truck on the way to a small brush fire that will eventually spread to destroy 700 acres and 250 homes that the fire truck could have prevented if it's tires weren't all flattened by squished nuns and orphans and school bus engine parts. (Mercifully, I was not conscious to witness this, but I am doomed to spend the rest of my life with this burden on my heart and on my shriveled scarred legs. In a wheelchair. Alone. But this isn't about me.)

WISIMH: You should stop brushing now.

Me: (Putting down the toothbrush and carefully proceeding to the kitchen) I’m not advocating here that we have to include prescription warnings about knowing side effects before operating light machinery, e.g. rechargeable sonic toothbrushes.

WISIMH: Good. Because everybody knows the heavy machine warning is code for Ima lay (sic) down ‘n take ‘n nap.

Me: Exactly!  And we don’t want to frighten Nana any more with school bus and fire truck crash scenarios proximately caused by operating sonic toothbrushes on drugs. Warnings about suicidal thoughts and attempts are scary enough already. I'm guessing some attempts succeed too.

WISIMH: So, er, what are you advocating here?

Me: You have to give your toothbrush a chance to recharge. It’s such a good guy...  

WISIMH:  ... And it's true, because your toothbrush is rechargeable.  

Watch out with that copper pot of boiling water!

Stratagem 27 Anger indicates a weak point

“I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!”

 - Abe Simpson

“Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal; not only because it is a good thing to make him angry, but because it may be presumed that you have here put your finger on the weak side of his case, and that just here he is more open to attack than even for the moment you perceive.”

Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Kunst,Recht zu behalten - The Art Of Controversy

Somebody said something I don’t want to mention more specifically because it is literally sickening and I don't want to spread the contagion by making this post googlable by using specific labels. The disgusting thing was said by somebody who is too awful to mention by name and it was widely reported on the media. 

I respectfully disagree with Arthur (may I call you Artie?) Schopenhauer. Making your opponent angry isn’t a nice way to win an argument. Poor Grandpa Simpson always falls for this.

Apparently, Artie didn’t have a strategy for applying passive aggression to win arguments, or even to beat his opponent figuratively senseless with words. Or maybe before we invented the term passive-aggressive, it was simply known as poking your opponent in the eye with a sharp metaphorical stick.

You don’t need an assault rifle of anger when you use your words. You can apply your rapier wit to leave your opponent’s arguments in tatters like a piñata at the end of a 10-year-old’s birthday party. You can deploy the RPG of your sarcasm to obliterate your opponent like a tornado in a china shop. You can drop leaden irony to crush opponents like a balloon of lard thrown on a hot sidewalk from a third floor balcony.

But be careful how you deploy anger even in words. In these Dies Irae anger management is a survival skill that should only be employed defensively, because anger and rage can escalate and kill. Anger should never be a strategy of first resort in any discussion with someone obstinate and already angry. Especially when decorum has been beaten bloody and kicked to the curb. And when the broadcast, cable and social media talking heads insist on keeping the "conversation" going. 

I think anger betrays stupid more than weak. It should go without saying that stupid questions deserve stupid answers. Hopefully (sic) answers the stupid person doesn’t get. Also, use your word powers for good. A good mission statement would be “Hulk only crush Stupid”. So my response to the statements referenced below may go a bit over the head of its intended target.

I am not angry at what that man who is so stupid they should create a new Nobel Prize in Stupidity for him said. I do believe however, that he is a sick fuck. 

Then again, maybe Artie is on to something about anger exposing weakness. the weakness apparent in Bad Comb-Over’s unconfined anger at women. He wears it proudly like a badge of rapey honor by a privileged fraternity boy; or like Bill Cosby with roofies and Viagra. He is overcompensating for his impotence and feelings of mental and moral inferiority to women by joking about incest, marital rape and menstruation; and by fat shaming and throwing women away shortly after menarche. He is apparently distracted by shiny things. I expect soon he will put FGM on the table and then say we wouldn’t even be talking about it if he hadn’t raised the important subject. His anger at women highlights his feelings of inadequacy and weakness, poor baby.

But I’m not inclined respond to his anger with anger. Why poke with a stick when I can ignore with disdain? Life's too short to engage with such toxic stupidity. I’m not sure what Schopenhauer’s strategy was numbered, but I will respond with words instead of letting Narcissism Impersonated’s anger provoke me to sinking to his level.

My father’s explanation of the rhetorical device I employ below was that if you’re in a shit throwing contest, always remember the winner isn’t the person who throws the most shit, it’s the person who has the least shit sticking to him when the fight is over. I distinctly remember learning this dinner-table wisdom at the XXL picnic table Dad made and covered with orange Formica that had that boomerang pattern.

Accordingly, if I was bothered to continue a conversation as rewarding as spitting into the wind, I'd say this. Sir, I’d say, I’m rubber you’re glue. Everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you. 

Although I would never literally ever touch a gun, I would figuratively give the rich narcissist with the bad comb-over a few extra holes to bleed out of as his sharp sticks aimed for my eyes boomeranged on him.

I call it the Karma Ricochet Strategy. The bad man shot first and it’s started to come back to him. Please don’t be mad sir, because the weaker sex isn’t staying around to watch you bleed out. Figuratively speaking. We’ve already literally forgotten you, little man.