There are instances—rare, but they happen—where I deliberately chose to be rude, usually when dealing with a Democrat, liberal, or primitive. There’s only two of that sort of people I could take in real life; the brooklynite primitive and the buzzy one, because they’re the only two primitives who’ve actually done meaningful things with their lives. I wouldn’t get all kissy-huggy with either of them, but at least I’d be cordial.
I’ve mastered the art of being rude without the other person realizing it. In most cases, I ignore primitive comments by acting as if they hadn’t been made, and because I’m deaf, there’s always that handy-dandy excuse, “oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,†which might, or might not, be true, but usually isn’t.
The oldest trick, I developed and refined when I was a child; being at the tail-end of a large family, I had ample opportunity to practice, and use it, the frigid treatment. Like a few other people—yes, we actually do exist—I can force myself to emit an icy-coldness that yes, can actually be physically felt. I’ve been told it’s perhaps the most scary thing about me, but because I’m a nice guy I use it only rarely, only in cases of extremely-bad primitive manners and conduct.
And there’s the dining room table treatment. This old place decades and generations ago housed a large family, and has large rooms. The dining room table, Sears, Roebuck mail order circa 1926, seats eighteen, one at each end and eight on the long sides. There’s leaves in it that one can take out, to make the table smaller, and that was done until I moved here, and put them back in, permanently, even though only the cats and I live here.
I sit at the west end of the table, closest to the door to the kitchen. Friends usually sit in the places closest to west end. (This is also a necessity because I need them close to understand what they’re saying.) If I know beforehand that a primitive is coming, I stack things on the middle of the table—piles of clean and folded laundry, unopened Christmas and birthday presents if it’s that time of the year, groceries waiting to be pantried, and one time an 84-candle candelabra that was about four feet tall.
This compels the not-particularly-wanted guest to sit way down at the other end of the table, and again, there’s an excuse that might, or might not, true, although usually it’s not. “Oh my, I’m really sorry about this mess in the middle of the table; I haven’t had a chance to put things away yet, so I hope you don’t mind.â€
And then there’s the cases where I want to turn off rude people, again usually primitives, who show up at the most inconvenient time, in this life that being the nocturnal hours when I’m trying to sleep. I sleep bereft of clothing. If a decent and civilized person shows up during the middle of the night, usually because of some emergency, I get dressed in a hurry. But it’s a primitive, and because I rather enjoy offending primitives, I let it hang.
And there’s the excuse, which might or might not be true, “I have a long day ahead for me, and was getting up early anyway to take a bath. No point of going through all the time and trouble to get dressed for just a few minutes, sorry.â€
