Just Desserts
Healing old wounds is hard. Is it ever ok to celebrate the demise of your enemies? Maybe just a little?
This month on the Sinisterhood Patreon, we released a new “Am I the Asshole” episode. There is a website on which users ask whether their behavior in interpersonal relationships is or is not acceptable. The other users judge their behavior by voting one of three ways: YTA — you’re the asshole; NTA — not the asshole; or ESH — everybody sucks here. Christie and I read the questions aloud on air then debate whether someone’s behavior rises to the level of assholery. It’s a ton of fun.
The first story we covered this week was about a man who recycles milk. It’s horrific. I don’t want to repeat it here.
But the second story we covered was regarding a woman’s “special ice cream nights.” I don’t want to give too much away, but it involved celebrating the untimely demise of this woman’s high school bullies with pints of delicious ice cream. She roped her husband into celebrating without telling him, and his reaction was the issue of the asshole question. I won’t get into all that here, but something about this story has been bothering me. Namely the fact that…
I am guilty of the wife’s behavior.
Now let’s get this straight. I am not having ice cream to celebrate anyone’s death. Ice cream is sacred and should be reserved for real celebrations like birthdays, high holy days, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. Fuck it, eat ice cream whenever you want.
Still, I have to admit I celebrate tiny victories in the form of the misfortunes of those who have wronged me. I am big enough to admit how small I am.
Of course, major mishaps like deaths and family losses are off the table. But something small –like a bad haircut, an ugly spouse, or the karmic subversion of a braggart’s exaggerated life plans — that is more delicious to me than any ice cream.
I’m not proud of this. Yet, it is true.
While I acknowledge that it is healthier to wish good fortune on everyone, it sure isn’t easy. Unless perhaps you are a saint. But I am not a saint; I am a human. A petty, petty human.
With the understanding that it is not productive behavior, I try not to seek out this information. In the same way I never drive myself to a buffet, I don’t purposefully head to those recesses of the internet. But also if I’m at a wedding and the dinner is being served buffet-style, well, hey, when in Rome, right? So if I’m scrolling and happen to see, oh I don’t know, a particularly mean bully’s new husband posting asinine vaccine hoax videos, well, that’s just the universe smiling down upon me. Right? Right?
On the flip side, there are probably people watching me in the same way, celebrating when things don’t go my way. If so, that’s fair. Plus, I’ll never know, so go ahead, crack open a pint for yourself when I fail.
I get where the ice cream lady is coming from though. Like her, I also missed days of school because of bullying. The things said to me scarred me to the point that a word or a song will still pierce my gut like an arrow. I want to write about what happened in depth some day when I am ready.
It is hard to write about because some of it is still so real to me, even 20 years later. I can feel the sheets of notebook paper between my fingers. See the insults about me penciled in with bubble letters. I can hear the snickers behind my back while a song is played loud enough for me to hear. The song they used to torment me? Ironically, “Un-Pretty” by TLC.
“That song is about you,” one of them said through laughs. Granted, yes, “un” means the opposite of something, but talk about a lesson in missing the point entirely. Imagine being so stupid that you attempt to wield a body positivity empowerment anthem as an instrument of insult. Stupid or not, it worked. I turned that song on recently to remember the words. Even to this day, when the acoustic guitar chords started, my cheeks burned with shame. My stomach seized. The weight of those days came roaring back.
Then I looked across the living room and saw my boyfriend, Paris, bopping his head to the song. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I smiled. To him, it was just another pop song. I let the song play through. I let the blood throbbing in my cheeks subside. You have no power here, I thought and closed the tab.
These are all deep-seated problems that probably require me to get even more therapy than I have already had. That I can admit. But in the meantime, I gotta say, the schadenfreude is a pretty good band-aid. Having a really amazing partner, helps, too.
I want to tell you I’ll do better, that I’ll stop scratching that itch that only comes from “winning” a decades-old invisible rivalry, but I love you too much to lie to you. I ain’t changing shit.
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