I read a news article, a while ago now, about two Russian Scientists in Antarctica. One of the two scientists on an expedition shot the other. It is the first time someone has been charged with attempted murder in Antarctica. The best part about this article was the reason this man decided it was time to murder his colleague. It seems the second scientist was intentionally spoiling the ending of books he was reading.
I would call that justified.
Then I remember the meanest thing I have ever done. Did I ever tell you about the meanest thing I have ever done? Well, intentionally done. I may have done something meaner to someone at some point, just not consciously thinking "this is mean and I'm going to do it and revel in it."
Once upon a time I worked in a funeral home. It was the worst job I have ever had and I wasn't even very good at it. I went in every afternoon and sat in a little "office" and called people to remind them that some day they would die and they should really start making arrangements. I'm not even kidding. That was my job. I did cold calling to try to get people to arrange their own funerals. I remember I called a woman who burst into tears and sobbed into the phone for ten minutes because I had called her on the anniversary of her husbands death. I also once called the owner of a rival funeral home in the area who started screaming at me. My job was to sell the inevitability of death and I wasn't very good at it. In the three months I worked there I made a couple thousand phone calls and had one person who wanted to schedule an appointment.
If that all wasn't bad enough, my "office" was a storage room right over the embalming area, the smell of the chemicals left me with a migraine every single day.
I cried every day before going in to work. I cam home every day and threw up. Let's just say it was bad and I spent almost every minute I was there in a bad mood but trying really really hard to pretend I was overjoyed to be there to talk to you about death.
I worked there in 2014 from October through Christmas. For a little bit of context that was the Christmas that the third and last film in The Hobbit trilogy came out.
One afternoon in December I was sitting at my desk with the phone to my ear, listening to it ring, which is infinitely better than being yelled or cried at. One of the secretaries had come up to do some filing and decided to start talking at me about all sorts of things that I was in no mood to listen to. What actors she thought were cute, the Kardashians, and some drama with her boyfriend that I only vaguely remember. Mostly, she seemed to be avoiding doing her job and making it extremely difficult for me to do mine.
I would like to remind you before I go on that there was no point in my time at that mortuary that I was not in a bad mood. If I was in a better mood I might not have done what I did.
She turned to me, leaning on the filing cabinet. "Oh, I'm so excited that the new Hobbit movie is coming out next week. I can't wait to find out how they tie it all together. Aiden Turner is just so cute. I hope he and the Elf Girl end up together"
Now, please understand. I LOVE the Hobbit. I have very cranky things to say to Peter Jackson about adding characters and love stories that were not in the book to his portrayal of The Hobbit. I feel justified in my actions. And I have no sympathy for people who don't read the book before seeing the film. I slipped the phone away from my ear. "Kili, Fili, and Thorin all DIE." Putting the phone back in place.
"What? Why would you say that?"
"The book has been out 70 years." The ringing clicked off, the sound of some unwitting fool answering their landline. "Good afternoon, I'm calling from Leavitt's Mortuary, can I have a minute of your time?"
That girl never spoke to me again and I imagine that if she had access to a harpoon gun she might have shot me with it.
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