Time to grab a pet peeve's leash and kick the living shit out of it. Imagine a small, yappy dog bouncing like a paddle ball off my boot sole bristling with Tricouni nails.
The whole issue is quite simple and innocuous, really. These things always are. Otherwise, the peeve in question would be labeled a sin, vice, or crime and laws would be passed. Instead, a tiny minority of one harbors and grooms the hostility generated from a minor transgression, lovingly allowing it to lap at the flowing bile.
There are times in life that a friend, acquaintance, or complete stranger shares some unfortunate situation with me. If I'm not amused, shocked, afeared, or annoyed, I feel sympathy. Because I'm one of those gun fondling, table saw owning males who doesn't have his scrotum suck up into his abdomen with terror at the idea of expressing an emotion outside the range of your typical barnyard animal, I often feel the need to express my sympathy.
The exchange usually goes something like this:
Random other person: "My cat got hit by a car yesterday."
Me: "That sucks. I'm sorry."
Much too often, this is where my pet peeve finally chews its leg out of the bear trap and sinks its needle sharp teeth into my buttock.
A curious change comes over some folks. Their faces shift from expressions of pain or sadness to one of puzzlement. They open their mouths and these words come spilling out:
"Why are you apologizing? You didn't have anything to do with it."
I tend to clarify with something like "I'm not apologizing. I'm just sorry for you."
I'm usually biting back wave after wave of nauseating scorn and derision.
Of course I didn't have anything to do with it! Have you lost complete command of the language? I was doing my best to express sympathy, pity, or regret, as in "I'm so sorry that you obviously don't have two neurons to rub together." I was not apologizing or describing your current condition: "You are one sorry son of a bitch."
How stupid you must think me for apologizing! Is your puny, cockroach brain mulling over something like "I spent months studying for that test and I didn't pass. And now here's Pakeha, apologizing as if he had anything to do with it. He must be really stupid... or fiendishly evil!"?
Do you expect me to confess?
"Yes, I drove over your mangy beast / broke into your car / sabotaged your freezer and ruined all your bags of mixed veggies and tater tots / contacted the hiring manager and convinced her to not hire your stupid ass / switched bodies with that asshole at the club and fucked your girlfriend / subjected your dear old Grandma to years and years of cosmic ray bombardment until the synaptic connections in her brain failed and she spent the last years of her life filling diapers until her bedsores went septic and she died leaving the house to your asshole brother."
Sweet baby Jesus on a Popsicle stick, people!
Pakeha