Unending Life Mandate Upheld

The United States Supreme Court upholds the controversial "Unending Life Mandate" on the principle that anyone who violated it and died in contravention was subject to fines under the taxing power and not the Commerce Clause. The decision is hailed as finally ending the needless scourge of mortality that, supporters argued, was affecting far larger numbers of poor than the rich. "Now that extra layers of poorly qualified bureaucrats are involved, Americans, black or white, 1% or 99%, are no longer forced to die when they just want to live forever, which is a basic human right, like being tall and good looking, and, most basic of all, only having good things happen," proclaimed the President. No word was given on funding as bureaucratic oversight of the mandate is set to exceed the global GDP.

All Grown Up

When my roommates, Harry and Tom (lawyers both), and I come back from trivia, particularly if we've managed to win, a peculiar tradition has developed.  Harry will walk directly into his room and emerge with his guitar.  He will set the guitar down on the center couch of the den/TV/living room, and, having poured himself a drink, will sit down on the couch (Tom's place is on the smaller love seat on one side of the room and mine is on a barcalounger on the other) and begin to fiddle with the guitar.

To be clear, Harry is an excellent guitar player.

The problem with his guitar playing, much like guitar playing of other excellent guitar players, is that he likes to play the difficult or interesting part of songs, which only last 30-45 seconds, at most.  In a band, he'd be forced to play a refrain or something for the lyrics to go over, but since it's just him doing his thing, he shifts to the next song he feels like going to town on.

This produces a level of frustration, at least on my part, because, while I tend to like every single thing he chooses to play, I hate only hearing 30-45 seconds of it before he moves on.  Eventually, this will cause me to ask him a question about something he's playing, partly because, well, I'm curious, but also because I want him to pause a second so I'm not getting more annoyed.

I should mention that after trivia, particularly if we've managed to win, we happen to be somewhat loosey-goosey vis-a-vis alcohol and its effects.

As I ask a question about music, a subject I know so painfully little about and which he knows far more, that gives Harry a chance to lecture somewhat pompously and disdainfully.  I'm not sure there's a thing Harry loves more than the opportunity to simultaneously teach you something you don't know about while chuckling at your abject foolishness at not knowing it in the first place.

Honestly, that sounds shitty of me to say about him, but we've been friends and roommates for a while now and it's just one of his things and it's by turns amusing and annoying. 

One of my things that's amusing and annoying is that, as he's somewhat loosey-goosey vis-a-vis alcohol and its effects and he's mock-contemptuously talking down to me, when he does venture into something I do know about and I catch him overreaching, I will annihilate him and needle him relentlessly.

Tom, meanwhile, curls himself on the loveseat and watches us with bemusement and annoyance and laughs at us.

At any rate, so it was last night, when the subject of The Beatles came up and Harry asserted that they were not "artists" but simply "technicians" who had only "found the formula for pop songs."  I won't need to tell you (but will, of course) that even when I've had a sip or two a) I am an argumentative bastard and b) I can still happen to recall a whole bunch of disjointed trivia.  I therefore threw out a wall of tidbits and facts about the Beatles, going from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers to "Harry, you're also the same jackass who says that Ray Charles is more influential than James Brown."

My supreme amusing and annoying fall back is to shift the conversation to things he doesn't know and then teach him and talk down to him.

Turnabout's fair play.

The tradition then devolves into him loudly proclaiming that he's the most educated person in the room (he has a legal masters in International Taxation) and my proclaiming that he doesn't know shit if he says the Beatles aren't artists, and that James Brown is definitely more influential, hell, just flat out better, than Ray Charles.

Tom, meanwhile, went to a much better undergrad, Wake Forest, than either of us, and I think maxed the math portion of the SAT.  That smug bastard is a bastard for not being smug at all.  His annoying (and not amusing) habit is to not ever jump into the fray to explain that he's smarter than us.  It's a crappy thing for a roommate not to have the courtesy to demean himself in front of the others so they can have something on him.  Tom is also the funniest of us.  That smug bastard.

Usually, there's good-natured cussing and then more drinks and we figure out the next topic for argument.  Last night, while in the kitchen making a drink, Harry stepped it up a notch in a fashion I was not prepared for at all.

He snatched my half-loaf of bread from off the top of the fridge, held it in one hand while he punched it to mulch in the other, placed it in the trash, laughed, and then went and sat back down in his spot.

That particular rhetorical device had not been taught in law school.

It was sorta brilliant.  I can't really argue with crushed bread.

So I said, "Um. Well..."

Tom laughed. Harry laughed.

We went back to the den/TV room/living room and that was the end of it.

So they thought.

NO ONE CRUSHES/PUNCHES MY DOUBLE FIBER WHEAT BREAD, DAMMIT!!!!

The key to getting proper revenge is patience.

After an hour of stewing on the inside and placidly smiling on the out, it was time for me to go to bed.  I bid them adieu.  To get to my room, I have to walk through the kitchen and then through Harry's room (old Charleston apartments have crap layouts).  Of course (OF COURSE), I took the bread out of the trash.

Then I hid the bread around his room like Easter Eggs.  I took photos with my phone and texted them to Tom, asking if he wanted to lay bets on how long it would take Harry to find them.  I heard Harry wobble into his room and go to bed about thirty minutes later.

As of this morning, he still hadn't found them.