Not So Big An A-Hole: ODO 36

 

Not So Big an A-Hole

   For most all of my post-high school life I have been said to be kind of an asshole. To a degree it's been almost a point of pride. Now that I'm older I'm starting to wonder if it's more "kind of" and less "asshole."

     Anybody who's familiar with my family would agree, I come from a long line of assholes. My dad is known to be a bit of an asshole. My grandfather was in politics so you know he was an asshole. I've heard his dad was a bit of an asshole as well. That's not to say that we aren't good people, but there is definitely a reigning character trait about the men in my family. Our family name has such notorious asshole cred that it has even been translated into a musical.

     Anybody familiar with "My Fair Lady" will recall that the male lead in that story is professor Higgins. Most people would chock that up to a coincidence or just needing a name for a character. That's until you look at the guy. He's a screaming asshole the entire time. He's so much of a jerk that his best friend has to explain it to Eliza that it's nothing personal, he's just like that. The funniest part of it is that his character is a perfect example of my family and myself. He isn't malicious. He isn't intentionally hurtful. He's just generally a dick to everybody. He's rude and blunt and is for the most part abusive to everybody on some level, especially those he cares about. It's almost as if the more he cares, the more abuse he dishes out. Oh wait, that's exactly what it is! I know because that is a perfect description of most of the men in my family.

     Every girl I've ever been with, including my wife, can tell you that I show my affection through abuse. Now I'm not saying I beat my wife. I would never do something so terrible. What I mean is that a day doesn't go by that I don't pick on my wife about something. It's a rare day when I don't call her out for being short. ( She's 4'10" for the record.) Or I will give her crap about her non-existent math skills. It's all in good fun and not malicious. I think the key is that I don't do it to hurt her. Her stature and math abilities are facts. I just make it a point a remind her of those facts when it is comedically useful.

     Oddly enough I've come to realize that I'm not the biggest asshole I know by far. This whole thought came from one of the guys at work. Of the people I currently know, he is easily the biggest asshole. He is one of those guys who has a super short fuse and will not hesitate to call you a piece of shit to your face. He doesn't care much about people's feelings. I believe "gives zero fucks" is the proper phrase. The difference is he's mean in a mean way. He's the kind of guy who says shit that makes you want to stab him in the face with a soldering iron. I know this from personal experience. ( Thank goodness for anger management.)

    Doing silly quizzes with my wife made me think to find an asshole quiz for myself. After an extensive google search, and by extensive I mean I searched "asshole quiz" and clicked the top 3 things, I've determined that I'm only about 40% of an asshole. Not even halfway there. I have to admit I am kind of disappointed. Here I am, a legacy asshole, and I don't even crack 50%. Then I started to think about the questions on these things and I realized that they didn't actually test for assholes. These quizzes, like every one of them, is actually testing for douchebags. As a card carrying asshole I am going to stand up and say that these are very different things indeed. I am most emphatically not a douchebag. What these quizzes determined was assholery was frequently hurting others for your own entertainment or a disregard for others for your own enjoyment. In a nutshell, douchebagery.

     I may be a dick, but I take no pleasure in hurting somebody. I don't do anything to harm someone or hurt their feelings. I personally feel that is the defining line between douchebag and asshole. For a really dumb analogy, I'd say the douchebag is the unsophisticated frat boy, while the asshole is the smart-ass doctor treating him for alcohol poisoning. Another example, it's the difference between someone telling dick jokes and someone doing intelligent humor. You have to have a certain intelligence to be an effective asshole. It takes a serious thinking mind to come up with some of the grade-A assholery from men such as Dennis Leary and Dennis Miller. Or maybe you just need to be named Dennis. Either way, if it puts me in the same category as thinkers like Miller and Leary and Lewis Black, I think I'll just keep on being an asshole.

Bullshit From the News

It's all behind them: 'Butt-chugging' fraternity returns to UT | News | utdailybeacon.com
 The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity at the University of Tennessee is being reinstated after being booted from campus four years ago for the use of "wine enemas." This puts stupid douchebag fratboy antics to a new level. How dumb do you have to be to think that pouring wine into a hose in your butt is a good idea?

Kissing Chickens Can Spread Salmonella, CDC Warns | Huffington Post

For the second time the CDC has issued a warning that kissing your pet chickens can lead to salmonella poisoning. I realize that some people view chickens as pets, but to me they are food. Don't kiss your very very very raw chicken dinner. It will get you sick.

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