Gratitude Monday: Cringe-control

Gratitude Monday, and I’m grateful for the pretentious idiots in my life—at a distance, mind you. Because if they were close, I’d have to kill them and, while there’s no jury in the world that would convict, there would still be all that legal hassle. Unless I happened to be in Texas at the time, in which case all I’d have to do is enter the plea, “He needed killin’,” and maybe pay a fine or something.

There is one in particular, whom I only know third- or fourth-hand; virtually, in fact. This is a person who feels compelled to have the last word in every exchange, regardless of how inaccurate, irrelevant or idiotic that word might be. And he fancies himself quite the wit, although I only rate him half-strength (at most) in that department. (One of my journal comments: “He’d be Wildean—if Wilde were dim-witted and pig-ignorant.”)

However—here’s why I’m grateful for him and his ilk: he reminds me that not everything I think I have to say is worth the electrons it takes to transmit it. And that if I want to reduce my self-cringe factor, it’s not really a good idea for me to hit “Reply-All” and start typing at a rate of knots. Sometimes—well, frequently, perhaps—I should just shut the hell up.

(And to those of you who've received the thoughts that escaped that filtration process, I humbly apologize.)

Because I’m not always as clever as I think I am.

Just as this guy is never as clever as he thinks he is.