onlydrinkhighlife

“You shit in my mouth, now I’m gonna shit in yours.”

That was a snippet of a phone conversation I heard a co-worker having earlier this week, while I walked by her desk. It took all of my will and self-control to not stop in my tracks and listen further. I am still trying to figure out if she was speaking literally or figuratively. Either way, that sentence begs so many questions. To begin with, was she speaking to a customer? At this point, I put nothing past the people I work with. And having experienced firsthand how rude and ignorant many of our customers can be, she may have even had a point. Assuming that she was conducting company business, I was still surprised at just how loudly she had made this filthy promise. Since our company stresses the importance of keeping the promises we make to customers.

If she was speaking figuratively, maybe she was just confused and meant to say, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” This isn’t out of the realm of possibilities, as the stupidity of our customers is nearly matched by the stupidity of our employees. Someone sent out an email yesterday and accidentally sent it to every employee in Michigan instead of to just the one person for whom it was intended. In the next 30 minutes almost 100 people replied to ALL with the message “This wasn’t supposed to be sent to me.” Then, “Stop replying to all.” Then, “Seriously, y’all. STOP!” Then, “Who’s hungry? Pizza??” (Seriously.) And then, “Let’s do Chicken Shack instead.” Then, “I’m not sure I’m supposed to be receiving this, but I’ll take some pizza.” I wish I were kidding about this. Adding to the annoyance is that our email system is set up so that an alert window pops up every time an email is received, so these messages kept interrupting my work. I would have fired every single person who sent a “reply to all” email. Anyone who can’t differentiate from “reply” and “reply to all,” cannot possibly be an asset to the company in any way.

If she was speaking literally, then she is setting herself up for failure. By the tone of her voice, it seemed like she wasn’t happy that someone shit in her mouth. That’s understandable. Obviously, the offender used the element of surprise to their advantage and seized upon a moment when my co-worker wasn’t expecting it. By announcing her intentions, she’s making it harder for herself to make good on her threat. I can’t imagine it is easy to get someone to allow you to put your bare butt right up in their face under any circumstance, but it has to be goddamn impossible if they are on the lookout for having their mouth shat in.

I get the satisfaction behind retribution, but I don’t understand returning the exact favor in this instance. If someone kicked me in the balls, I would dedicate my life to kicking them in the balls. This works because the act of me kicking someone else in the balls doesn’t cause me further pain or embarrassment. Now if someone ever – God forbid – shat in my mouth, I would still dedicate my life to getting revenge on that person, but by killing them. Show me the jury that would convict me after I explained the situation to them. I wouldn’t exact revenge by shitting in their mouth because that isn’t something that I ever want to do. Or will ever do. Ever.

Well I mean, I guess I would do it under certain circumstances. Like if it were somehow guaranteed that if I shat in Bin Laden’s mouth that it would could create everlasting world peace or that it would mean that I’d never have to work again, I’d probably do it. Obviously, we’d have to find him first, so it’s kind of a moot point.

Getting back to my co-worker, what if the person she was speaking to is hoping that what she said wasn’t a threat, but actually a promise? Like, he (or she!) has been trying his (or her!) whole life to have this done, but no one ever was willing. So instead, he (or she!) concocted an elaborate plan to find a woman who believes in “eye for an eye” revenge so literally that when he (or she!) craps in her mouth, the woman will make it a point to do the same back. Then he (or she!) lets her do it by feigning repulsion and reluctance. Aaand mission accomplished. Or maybe the guy (or gal!) was simply doing it to achieve world peace.

# posted by JFunk @ 4:49 PM