Credit Where Credit Isn't Due?

I often make Brent give me credit for the things I don't say. Or don't say to other people. I make him listen to the devastating paragraph of bile I COULD have spewed forth and then tell him what I said instead and make him tell me what a good choice that was. 

I think there should be some sort of acknowledgement on social media as well. When the AI recognizes that you have typed and massive response then either left the page without posting or deleted all of it and left just a thumbs up you should get an automatic gold star somewhere on your profile.  

My profile would be so shiny it would be hard to look at. 

Though possibly my Good Denise Bad Denise posts would cost some of them. 

It would be worth it. 

And then I could earn them back for NOT posting a Good Denise Bad Denise update when I really want to. 

Constant star loop for me. 

I have a few other people aside from Brent who get blasted with the "DO YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT?" texts and messages. 

I'm grateful for those people in my life. The ones who will listen to me at my worst and laugh at how devastatingly funny I am even when I am gutting someone navel to neck with my words. 

Because I am.

I am mean funny. 

I don't trot it out a lot but when I was younger I used to be the Queen of the devastating quip. I was pretty sure it wasn't bad if I told the joke while I slammed the person. And I will admit that even now if someone is saying something horrible about me if they can say it in a funny way I will laugh and give them more of a pass than just someone being nasty without the funny. 

I've read a lot of "generations do this" sort of things that say that is a strong Gen X trait. We were awful to each other. Friends and enemies alike got the same sort of treatment. A lot of it was and is just meanness. The joke now is that we weren't hugged enough as children. Or that we were feral. Or that because we had to take care of ourselves from a young age we learned not to show weakness. 

It could be all of those things. Or it just could be because we did it, we did it. Which I know sounds really circular, but that's the truth about most societal norms. You do a lot of things because the people around you do those things. And until someone else steps out of line and does something different you don't even notice it.

Like the #MeToo movement. Practically every woman in my generation has a story. I would say every woman, and I believe that every woman does, but I have peers who swear they don't. Even when you point out that a certain event was harassment they will argue with you that it wasn't harassment, it's just the way it was. And that's why practically every woman in my generation has a story. Because it just was. 

It took a different generation to step up and say, That's not okay. Just because it's normal to you doesn't mean it's normal. And things started to change. 

Everything is like that. Until someone steps up and says no, or let's not, or here's a different path, most people will continue to do things just because that's the way it's always been done. 

And as the world changes around me I try to keep up. 

But that doesn't mean I don't have a paragraph of completely devastating things to say to you when I think you're being an idiot. They'd probably even make you laugh as you sobbed. 

Probably.

I am very mean funny.