I have this really fun text box at the bottom of the site where I ask you what the best part of your day has been so far. Normally it’s a hoot. The other day someone shared:
“My fresh peach and pineapple smoothie . . . made by me!”
Peach and pineapple! I need that recipe.
Normally, I get a lot of this:
“Finding your great website!”
Which is probably my mom or aunts visiting my website over and over, but each and every time it makes my day.
The other day, though, I got this:
“Seeing you still are a sad sack of crap.”
Now, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say, was it? I was kinda down in the dumps about it for a day or two. And, to be sure, when I remember someone took the time to make my day worse, I can be sad.
The thing is, that I am 99% sure it’s that Roommate From Hell that Will and I had last winter. See, he was never a very happy person, and it would make sense if he got his rocks off by cyber bullying me.
Is my cyber bully our old Roommate From Hell?
I know that he’s not the only person in this world to dislike me. But the tone and timber of the comment scream him. Most of the other people (that I know of) that don’t like me are more poetic and dainty in their language. Or so I’d like to think.
Regardless, of who it was — though I’m sure it was that old Roommate From Hell — I’m taking a page from one indigenous culture in my attitude towards this.
Important People Have Nemeses
I know very little about this particular indigenous culture. I know they are indigenous to North America and some part of California and that Heyday Books may or may not be covering their culture in an upcoming publication.
But the part that’s relevant here is that in this indigenous culture, everyone that’s anyone has a nemesis.
Imagine that! There goes the grocer grinding his teeth about his nemesis the postal worker. Oh poor Dennis the dentist will never get over how his nemesis Frank the obstetrician stole his woman back in 98. I love it.
Like a Quinceañera or a Bat Mitzvah, as you age, you earn a nemesis. I don’t know much about how or why that happens–maybe by speaking your mind in the face of adversity, blogging about horrible roommates or instigating bar fights–but it’s so important that everyone gets a nemesis that if you don’t have one, people don’t think you’re important.
“Oh there’s Mick. Did you hear, he doesn’t have a nemesis??! What a loser!!”
So, let it be known. I am important enough to have a nemesis!
And that nemesis is my old Roommate From Hell. But he’s not my nemesis. No, I’m saving that for someone far more important than he.
Though I do appreciate how good he is at providing fodder for this here blog. Thanks for that Roommate from Hell! And thanks to Albrecht Durer for the post photo, an engraving titled “Nemesis.” I guess nemeses were big back in the 16th century too.
What about you? Who is your nemesis?