This is an excerpt from the the author’s book “Conversations In Hyperreality and other conversations Umberto Eco and Dave Barry never had”. This entire book will help deprogram readers who wish to be able to once again identify and stand up as regular, normal, and non-politically-correct-whipped. Footnotes referenced in the article will be found at the end and Yes, these are very, very, very, very important…I mean, funny. [Try not to bust a gut.]
One person who would disagree with you about my overall good nature and ability to get along with just about everybody would be The Ex. In fact, he had a special name for me that confirmed his opinion. In this, he agreed with the Kingsmen drummer. That name was Bitch.
Yes, Bitch with a capital B, and make no mistake about that. Though he let it fly verbally once in a while, he mostly thought the name. I could tell from the look in his eyes that’s what he was thinking. Then he left no doubt toward the end of the marriage when he started saying it out loud in public.
Funny thing:
Pussy-Hat Wearing Politically Correct Liberal Democrat RINO Socialist Fascist Commies[1] and certain Jazz Kittens[2] share The Ex’s opinion of the reader’s favorite[3] Autodidact Polymath Magnificently Methodical Southern Women and The Most Brilliant Woman In The World. And just like I told The Ex when he called me the B-word, I am willing to tell them all with relish and glee, “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
I say I am willing to do it as if I haven’t done it. That is correct. And the reason I haven’t done it is because, well, for years I let myself be guided by this philosophy, namely: One shouldn’t pick on people with learning disabilities and, it became clear to me, that as an Autodidact Polymath Magnificently Methodical Southern Women and The Most Brilliant Woman In The World, compared to me everybody has learning disabilities. So, I made it an operational guideline to simply smile indulgently when the not-so-well-thought-out insults came and to thank them for their most learned opinion.[4]
That worked for many years. And by worked I mean fights and murder were avoided.[5] But dang it all to aitch, ee, double hockey sticks and back, I wasn’t having any fun, and further was constantly being mistaken for an easy target by bullies which finally prompted me to ask, “Angela, is this really how you want to live the rest of your life?” And the answer was no, it was not.
But what was missing?
It took me a while to realize what it was and in this I would like to thank “That 70s Show” for reminding me about “The Art of the Comeback”. The TV show was filmed in the 2010s but accurately represented a time before Political Correctness in all its glorified absurdity came to rule human conversation.[6] It is clear the show’s creators lived during that time and were familiar in a firsthand way with that art, now almost lost.
Of course, before we can bring back an art, we must first understand how that art disappeared. More specifically, why. Let’s walk through it. It started when three things came into being at the same time. One: An eroding of the use of Yes, ma’am, No, ma’am, Thank you, and please. Two: Children calling adults by their first names instead of the use of the titles Mr., Mrs., or Miss. Three: The rise of the fake Socialist[7] professor in academe. And four: The promotion of the notion that to care meant nobody ever got their feelings hurt.
Let’s start with one: There came a point where to use these social niceties was thought of as rude and, in some cases, arrogant.[8] All of a sudden it seemed people were ordering other people around. The difference between “Please, sir, pass the salt and pepper” and “Pass the salt and pepper” is huge. Like, Grand Canyon huge. Like, Master-to-Slave huge. If the resulting disuse of these niceties didn’t make more class distinctions, then I don’t know what could.
Number two: I was aghast the first time an adult told my children to call them by their first name and immediately whipped my head toward the issue of my loins and said, “You will address her as Mrs. Smith[9], I don’t care what she tells you to do, you understand me?”
Mrs. Smith then turned to me and with nose in air and a self-righteous sniff proceeded to explain to me how I was hurting the self-esteem of my child by not making them equal to adults at which point I said, “Mrs. Smith, you want to adopt them and pay all their bills? No? Then shut up and let me teach my children good manners. Thank you.”[10] Mrs. Smith was offended and let me know. I asked if it would make it all better if I was to say it all again but use her first name.
She walked away in a huff.
Number three: Furthering the problem[11] was the insidious placement of Soviets in the American school system. Yes, the KGB specially trained certain of their patriots to pretend to be anti-Soviet and to seek asylum in the U.S. Of course, these fake dissidents offered the CIA, FBI, and other alphabet government agencies just enough secret information that they were rewarded with cushy tenured positions in all the best schools across the land. They then identified the forerunners of our current iteration of dissidents, the P-HWPCLDRSFC, recruiting them via sneaky means[12] to push their agenda on U.S. campuses by shoving it down the throats of students afraid they would not graduate if they disagreed with the prof.
And finally, number four: The promotion of the notion that to care meant nobody ever got their feelings hurt. Little known fact: Without any irony on their part, this notion began to be promoted on university campuses by professors who honed the art of bullying their students while requiring those same students to think that all opinions carried the same weight except the professors’ were weightier, and that one must never use certain words and phrases[13] or else people would think the student didn’t care! Whole sitcoms[14] were built around this concept, thus pushing the Soviet messaging through a capitalist ad-supported medium.[15]
Now that we know the history of how we came to where we are, let us return to the revival of “The Art of the Comeback” and how that is looking in our popular culture.
It all began when Donald “The Hammer” Trump decided he would run for president of the United States. Democrats, Radical Feminists, professors (retired or still teaching), and their acolytes humored the Orange One, as they named Trump, and smiled at him indulgently while gently saying things like “He just has no idea how silly he is. He has no chance to win the Republican nomination much less ever getting elected against our royalty…we mean, Hillary.”
Oh, the sweet scorn fairly flowed down their mountain tops in the form of headlines in all newspapers, major or otherwise, tweets by pundits, magazine covers, learned articles in serious publications, whole books, and on television with nightly reports on how “The Donald”, a former reality show star, had not even a snowball’s chance on a loaded barbeque grill in the South on the Fourth of July. Until, that is, Trump won the Republican nomination.
That is when the previously caring Left, RINOs[16], Deep State, and The Bigs of the Mainstream Media took off their gloves and put brass knuckles on each hand and came out swinging. Oh, the names they called him went a-flying around the world. Even leaders of other countries opined about Trump. What none of them counted on was Trump’s reaction.
See, the Left, RINOs[17], Deep State, and The Bigs of the Mainstream Media have been so used to being obeyed that when they told “The Hammer” to stop pretending he could win the election and he didn’t quit, they were horrified, aghast, sickened, depressed, and, in two famous instances, were left speechless on air. Attacks on Trump went from bad to “now we’re serious and we will destroy you.”
So, why haven’t those attacks against Trump worked like planned?
Because Donald is the king of the comeback. He’s so good at it, you would think he had written the book “The Art of the Comeback” instead of that other one.[18] Then came the time when Trump didn’t wait for his enemies to strike first with their poutin’ and whinin’, and instead had tweet after tweet of snarky comeback bait awaiting them when they woke in the morning. Now who was behind in the news cycle? Now who was messing with their little minds? Huh?
Yeah, that’s right. Of course, what was humorous was that the Left, RINOs, Deep State, and The Bigs of the Mainstream Media didn’t have any comebacks at all. Not a one. Not one single retort that anybody cared to talk about.[19] We know this because the media was not quoting each other but was quoting Trump all day long because it was only then their sagging Nielson ratings and paper circulations went up.
Trump’s tweets and speeches and eye rolls and such, even as his wife tried to make nice, gave hope to millions — I misspeak! — billions of people around the world who said, “Hey, I can do that and bring back some clear thinking in my neighborhood.” And they are doing that. Why, just the other day I heard a young man say to a young woman, “Woman! What’s the matter with you? You on the rag?”[20]
And the reason that young man felt empowered to say such as that to a Radical Feminist acolyte was because Trump has said something similar to Little Dear Leader, also known as Little Rocket Man by millions now that Trump named him. Isn’t that just cool and great and so…so…real and human? Yes, it is.
The comeback restores equilibrium by telling bullies, and others who are out of control, that there are limits and they will abide by them or else suffer the consequences.
See? Comebacks are cheaper than war, and when done properly makes the murder count go way down. Chicago and Detroit could use lessons in “The Art of the Comeback.” God knows nothing else is working for them.
[1] Often referred to by its acronym: P-HWPCLDRSFC.
[2] Yes, the reader has deduced correctly that this may, in point of fact, be a redundancy with the preceding statement as most Jazz Kittens are P-HWPCLDRSFCs.
[3] P-HWPCLDRSFCs and The Ex do not hold the author in the same favored status nor do they recognize the overall talent and genius that is she. They are such limited thinkers.
[4] The author has found this method does have a sharp bite at the end of it for them because often the people to whom she grants a thank you then believe she approves of their comment, if not outright agrees with it, and they are always mighty surprised to later find out she does not.
[5] The author agrees that murder was a bit of a stretch, but for the sake of making a point — and to remind you that you did not know The Ex — she feels it was perfectly acceptable to say that.
[6] By “human conversation” the author means First World countries with strong state-funded systems of education, from elementary to college and the spectrum in between, which insidiously inserted Socialist thinking coupled with “Caring” thus rendering null and void the part of conversation known as “The Burn” or “The Comeback”.
[7] Time would prove these to be true Communists.
[8] The author notes the reader’s point: Arrogant and rude are the same, so the statement seems redundant. However, while rudeness is embodied in arrogance, arrogance itself embodies conceit, snobbery, and condescension from those with lots of money and high place in society, whereas poor people can be rude in their own way.
[9] Not her real name.
[10] The author has lost touch with Mrs. Smith and has never cared to find out where that Socialist witch is anyway. However, the author did find out that twenty years after this incident, Mrs. Smith became Mr. Smith and then donned a red pussy hat and marched in the streets beside his sisters. As a female, Mrs. Smith preferred men so as a woman she was straight. But now as a man she still prefers men and therefore has ticked another inclusive box as a gay man.
[11] The author chose to use this negative word on purpose, though some general managers of car dealerships and other sales directors would prefer the use of the word challenge.
[12] Flattery, alcohol, drugs including LSD, Timothy Leary and other guru types, calling them by their first names except when in bed and then using their title in a sexy voice, and so forth, so that while at work on campus Martha and Mark taught class, but at night when they were boinking each other’s brains out they were My Wittle ProfessOR and DOCtor FEELgoooood.
[13] The author is not going to list those words/phrases as the reader would be bored out of their gourd with reading a list of 5974 words/phrases — and still growing.
[14] The reader may recall a famous episode in a show called “Seinfeld” whose most famous line was “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” This line can still be heard coming from the mouths of Millennials who have never heard of Jerry Seinfeld, thereby making the case for the Soviet’s success in infiltrating the U.S.
[15] Ruskies are way sneakier than anybody.
[16] Republicans In Name Only.
[17] Republicans In Name Only, in case you forgot.
[18] “The Art of the Deal”, which was a stupid book, but he sold a bunch of them, so maybe not so stupid after all?
[19] The best it ever got was when Anderson Cooper replied on air to a Trump tweet when he said, “Oh, yeah? Well…ummm…well.”
[20] The author is lying. She did not hear this, but it is funny and she says you just wait and see if that doesn’t come back into popular usage making her a prophetess so that her full title will be Autodidact Polymath Prophetess Magnificently Methodical Southern Women and The Most Brilliant Woman In The World.
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Born and raised in Georgia, Angela K. Durden is an author, publisher, editor, songwriter, performer, and more, living in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia, area. Support your Citizen Journalist by visiting her Consolidated Author Page and buying a book or three. See more about Angela here and you will want to because she is a Magnificently Methodical Southern Woman and The Most Brilliant Woman in the World. Hey, want to watch a fun video? Click here.
