Me Verbally Abusing a Coworker

One day one of my coworkers and sometimes bosses who normally doesn't work as late as me worked as late as me, and offered me a ride, and I had such a delightful time that at the next such opportunity I straight up asked her for one with no remorse for the mild inconvenience caused. What follows is my memory's best approximation of an exchange that occupied most of the journey to my house.

Her: Are you working tomorrow?

Me: Yeah. Every day...

Her: It'll be a party.

Me: Really? What's the occasion?

Her: Ummm... we're still alive and making money. That's the only occasion I can think of.

Me: But we don't know if we will be... you never know, we could crash thirty seconds from now and both die.

Her: You mean in the car, or like planets colliding?

Me: Uh... I guess either way.

Her: I don't plan on it.

Me: People usually don't.

Her: Maybe they should. Maybe we should all plan on dying and live like it.

Me: I would be such a jerk. I would tell so many people how I really feel about them.

Her: Past people, or present?

Me: Um... mostly past. I like most of my coworkers.

Her: Haha! That's good. If you have something to say to me, the door is open.

Me: Um... um... I hate... the way you do your hair. [Note: This is not true. But at the time, I was drawing for inspiration off of an Indiana Jones comic where he's being strangled to death and he thinks something to the effect of, "This is it... and I never got to tell Marion how much I... I... I hate those awful red shoes she always wears!" More about him in a bit.]

Her: Haha! What's wrong with it?

Me: It's like a crime against humanity.

Her: Haha! This is how it naturally is.

Me: Then I hate the way God does your hair.

Her: Haha! Sometimes I hate the way God does my hair too. I'll do it differently tomorrow... Anything else?

Me: I hate your clothes.

Her: Everything?

Me: Everything.

Her: A lot of times I just wear the company uniform.

Me: Well, it looks good on some people, but not you.

Her: What should I wear then?

Me: Um... a paper bag.

Her: Haha! A paper bag?

Me: I guess it would match your eyes...

Her: My eyes aren't brown.

Me: No? What are they then?

Her: They're hazel. Which is what people with brown eyes say to make themselves feel better.

Me: What's wrong with brown eyes?

Her: They're just boring...

Me: And what do you dislike about me?

Her: Chris, I don't like your height.

Me: My height? [Note: I assumed she just meant that she doesn't like that I'm taller than her because she's short.]

Her: If you were just an inch shorter, or an inch taller, it would be fine, but this height just doesn't work for you.

Me: What if I gained weight and expanded out a little, to kind of balance it, would that help?

Her: Mm, no, I don't think there's really anything you can do about it.

Me: I see... anything else?

Her: Your socks. They're just boring.

Me: Oh... well, I have some black socks with hamburgers on them.

Her: Really?? That's great!

Me: I usually wear them to church, because they're black, but I suppose I could wear them to work...

Her: You should, and you should roll your pant legs up so everybody can see them.

Me: Okay... and you know, you don't actually have to change your hair tomorrow...

Her: I was thinking about straightening it, but now I'm going to just to make you feel bad.

Me: Thanks.

Her: Of course.

So she did, and I did the sock thing, and now we're friends enough that I just go talk to her every day without needing to come up with an excuse, and I just keep insulting her. She insists that she likes being insulted as long as it's not serious, so it's okay that I'm being unkind because I'm also lying, and it makes her laugh and gives me a warm feeling. Are all humans this weird, or just Americans?

Speaking of Dr. Jones...

VidAngel, a company that has elicited a disproportionate amount of rage from people who can't think of anywhere better to direct it, is back for the time being and released this video about the crap in Hollywood.

I agree with most of it. Female objectification makes me sick and Ferngully scared the bejeebers out of me as a kid. I loved Jar Jar Binks, though. He was intended as a comic relief device for children and whatever you may think of him, he fulfills that role just fine. I don't think we should "protect" our children from exposure to him. And the other bit I take issue with is their aspersion on Dr. Jones' character in their criticism of "scenes where it's the good guy forcing himself on a woman", briefly showing clips from Zorro and Indiana Jones and James Bond where the alleged good guys are allegedly doing that. And in the case of Zorro and James Bond, this criticism is entirely warranted. James Bond, in fact, in his very first film (Dr. No), also set the very first precedent for a movie protagonist to shoot someone in cold blood and still be considered a "good guy", so he's just kind of a jerk in general.

But in this clip from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", Indy is not forcing himself on Willy Scott. In both the film and the novelization (which states this explicitly) it's quite obvious that he isn't trying very hard to reel her in and she isn't trying at all to get away. She could just shrug it off and keep walking away if she wanted to, but she doesn't. You've seen him using that bullwhip on bad guys, right? You know what it looks like when he's actually trying, right? Maybe wrapping it around her in the first place is a jerk move regardless - certainly he must have broken some hips while practicing it on other occasions - but I don't think it would be any worse than an unsolicited hug, which may be objectionable but certainly not put him in a category with those other two jerks. A much better and equally famous, albeit less visually provocative example to use would have been Han "Stop what?" Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back". The same actor, no less. And then there's every single movie where the man kisses the woman without asking permission, aka virtually every movie that has kissing at all. This problem runs deep.

Does Indiana Jones routinely flout even the 1930s' accepted standards of archaeology with reckless disregard for artifact preservation? Of course. Does he habitually break the laws of every country he travels through? Pretty much. Does he consistently leave a trail of death and destruction in his wake? More or less. Does he fail to provide the timely grading, personal mentorship, and full attention that his students deserve? Usually. Is he a rapist? No. That is all. Thank you for your attention.