Getting Someone's Goat

In order to maintain or move up the social ladder, you have to develop a reputation that everyone agrees is “normal.” In fact, be more normal than normal. There's nothing people love to do, when you're not around, is to gossip and unfairly judge you worse than than a Jesuit Inquisitor. So defend you must! Unless you're like me and want to fuck with people's heads, start fires and come out of a social situation good and scratched up...for fun! It's almost guaranteed they'll talk about you for days!

I did this more so when younger, screw around in situations that had, perhaps, a casual, unwritten order to them. Actually, it was an instant attention getter if you do something to cause other's mouths to drop. Also, I found it pretty comedic. The humor was generally completely LOST by those who couldn't sub-reference a joke fifty different ways in under five seconds. Those people were kinda boring, commonplace and dull. Though you do need these people there, they're the mark, those of us who get the joke will be our audience and will demand continual torture of the dullard.

At an annual 4^th of July event, I managed to piss off a few people on purpose. I don't know why I go down that road but I do it willingly, with gusto! Once I get someone's goat, I can't help but to abuse it to no end. Of course, after it's all done, I won't get any invitations to their house anytime soon.

I don't know how we got on the subject but dating later in life came up. I then opine that when I was dating more so than now, I'd come across women who invariably had kids from a previous marriage or whatnot. I made it a point to surreptitiously find out about those kids. What I did, was to ask if their kids liked school, did well there and specifically, asked if they did well in English class. Why English? Because it's kinda hard to succeed at the other classes if you can't read.

If the Mom's told me the kids suck in school, hated it, or really sucked in English, I then became pretty damned suspicious about that. Why....did they do sooo poorly? Was their home life so god damn chaotic that education was impossible? Did the kid have some weird genetic problem? Was the kid an asshole to begin with? If I found out that any of these were the case, I'd never have a second or third date.

Why am I so ardent? Because I've been through it before where the little bundle of joy would like throw the TV onto the floor when he didn't get his way. That or call DCYF and lie about his Mom burning him with cigarettes. That was alot of fun. I will not repeat it.

But when I told a group of women at the party of my RULE #1, some of them became super defensive.

“Whaddya mean if they don't do well in school? What if they're just a bit slow? What if they need help of a tutor? Why blame the Mom? What? Is YOUR life so damned perfect? Huh? What do YOU know? You've never been married or had kids!”

I had tried to repeat my view but I was getting shouted down nearly. It then hit me. The old Shakespeare quote does fit, “The lady doth protest too much.” What I realized, was that a few of them took my view as a condemnation of their own, personal child rearing success. Gee...what archery on my part! Nailed it! Bullseye! And I wasn't even trying.

So...why waste a good chance to make the situation far worse and have fun at it?

I don't know where my next comment came from. I was good and buzzed because I rarely drink now and putting down half a case of Yuelings over a 3 hour period got me going. I think I was thinking about marriage in general, how it's NOT always the panacea it's claimed to be and the other thousand problems that can muck it up.

So I remember a short conversation I had with a Pawtucket fireman and it gave me the comment I needed to shock the staid, middle class, married women there.

“Ya know...if I wanted a really pretty girl, just for a short time..I can always go to Las Vegas, get an 18 year old teen prostitute, at one of those agencies where it's completely legal. I too, can make believe I'm a teenager again and use her like a Shake 'n' Bake bag!”

(No joke. I said that)

For about seven seconds, everyone there just sat there in dumb silence.

On the eighth second, they ALL rose up in condemnation of my idea. “You PIG! A teenager! What about STDs? What about being LOYAL? That's GROSSSS!”

I then said: “Do you want to hear the story?”

They all shut up pretty quickly as they thought I was about to further shock them about my nailing a high school girl in a hotel bed. Nope, I was about to tell them a true story about a fireman I know. The story I was about to tell was a bit of condemnation of marriage when it doesn't work.

Fireman B: “My marriage has been dead for years. As it was going down, I tried ways to make her happy. I had bought that house in Matunuck she wanted, a pretty pricey beach house that made me work far too many hours of overtime, plus a second job. When that didn't make her happy, I relented to paying for plastic surgery. I spent $9,000 on a pair of tits for her and other things, that made her look she was 19 again. Christ...I went into hock over her”

I keep telling the tale...

“She had long ago shut me off sexually and to tell the truth, I was ok with it. I didn't find her that appealing anymore anyway, but I still liked girls, wanted to get some. So I went to Las Vegas, with some other guys...not to gamble, but to pool our money for a weekend long escort.”

He told me that once the agency verifies you, find out you ARE who you say you are...and can come up with the $2,000 fee for a weekend girl, they send over a catalog to your hotel.

“I flipped through the pages and I picked HER! She looked like the girl next door, the girl you knew on the cheerleading team. I had her for the whole weekend! It wasn't just sex, but I turned her into a tour guide for me in Las Vegas too. The best part? She LEFT ME on Sunday night when our contract was up...she WENT AWAY!”

“Fireman B” I say, “What's cheaper? Marriage or a teen escort from Las Vegas?”

“The teen!” he blurts out.

The girls I had insulted around the table sat there in silence. I could READ their faces after they heard the story. What was it I read? I saw them quietly thinking about their own husbands, whether they'd stray, whether they would stay put. Perhaps even there was straying but due to whatever...they stayed married. It was a conscious surrender and as long as they were Wife #1, with their names on the deed, 401k and such...a dalliance that lives in Las Vegas could be tolerated.

I stood up from my chair, I pointed at the women and said, “I'm RIGHT.”

The whole time I was doing this, I felt like giggling. Here I was poking the bears through the cage bars with a stick and I couldn't STOP! I kept at it even though I was probably, most assuredly, spending to zero any good collateral I had with them before.

Ah, I hadn't done this in a few years. I used to do it all the time when younger.