Don’t Tell Me To Shut Up

Your old pal Jack is known for being the kind of guy who really does march to the beat of his own drummer. He is prone to getting lost in his own world, is known for swearing like a sailor and has a sense of humor that sometimes borders upon the indecent. A scrapper and muckraker who isn’t afraid to get the last word in he is exceptionally gregarious and comfortable in his own silence.

His good friends will tell you that people love him or hate him and he’ll nod his head in affirmation. If that wacky Shmata Queen ever resurfaces she’ll confirm that sometimes storms follow in his footsteps. If he had his way he’d be just like Zeus, a god on a mountaintop who you don’t want to irritate because he might light your ass up with a lightning bolt.

If you ever wanted or needed to know how to get him to fling one of those bolts at you all you need to do is tell him to Shut Up. He finds it interesting to note that these two simple words set him off like no others. You can call him an asshole or a motherfucker and he doesn’t care. In fact, he might agree with you. Call him a jerk, a schmuck and a putz and he’ll laugh because clearly you have mistaken him for a Bostonian or Clevelander.

Tell him that he is a pretentious fuck who should stop speaking about himself in third person and he’ll nod his head but he won’t stop until he is ready because he is oppositional, adversarial and grumpy. A 41.5 year old curmudgeon who works hard at honing his craft he finds all this nonsense to be mildly amusing.

Why oh why do those two words set him off? Well, as he sits here wondering aloud it occurs to him that he doesn’t pay much attention to any of the “harsher” curse words or “shut up” unless they are used by certain people. His mommy and daddy should be proud that he learned the old sticks and stones rhyme so well because that is sort of where it began, this ability to ignore the epithets and colorful descriptions that people have hurled at him.

So you might wonder if those certain people can upset him by using those other words and the truth is that they can, but only to an extent. For whatever reason, “Shut Up” just bothers him more and if you use it be prepared for his response. But if you are among the select group who are capable of getting under his skin you are already know these things so the purpose and point of this post is questionable.

Or maybe not, maybe this is just another writing exercise that he uses to prepare himself to begin the working on the writing that pays the bills.

• Saved: Narishkeit