You may have noticed the word “chump” turning up in this blog from time to time over the past few months. This is because my frenemy Apollonia, AKA the Angel of Darkness, uses it regularly, and I have picked it up by osmosis.
A “chump,” by Apollonia's definition, is anyone doing anything of which she disapproves. Eating soup, for example. “Soup is for chumps,” she announced. “It's water and maybe some noodles. Why bother?”
She made this Delphic pronouncement at lunch one day, in the presence of myself and our mutual friend Cathleen. Cathleen was – you guessed it – eating a bowl of soup. We both looked at Apollonia incredulously. “Soup is good food,” I admonished her. “The Campbell's company has been telling us that for years.”
“I like soup,” Cathleen said in a quavering tone.
“It's a waste of time,” Apollonia said, glaring at us both like the Eye of Sauron. (You know how some people just keep digging themselves in deeper and deeper? You think you've caught them in something indefensible, and they shock you by maintaining that they're right nonetheless? Like Republican presidential candidates. And like Apollonia.) “I don't have the patience for it.”
Um, well, you see what we're faced with on a daily basis.
Who else is a chump? Let's see:
-
People who go to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun to gamble. (“You can drive to Twin River in Lincoln and lose your money there, and it's only a fifteen-minute ride and you spend less on gas.”)
-
Birds. (“Half the time they're on the ground. If I could fly, you'd never find me on the ground. What's the matter with them? Do they forget they can fly? How stupid is that?”)
-
Other drivers. (“So I'm sitting behind him at a traffic light, and he's not going anywhere, and I start honking my horn and yelling: 'What are you waiting for, a different shade of green?'”)
-
People who cook at home rather than eating out. (“Why would you want to go to all that trouble? Not to mention doing the dishes afterward. Who needs it?”)
-
People who eat imperfect bananas, i.e., bananas with any visible dark spots or imperfections. (“I want them perfect. Is that so wrong?”)
You will notice that the word “chump” is not used directly in the above statements. It is, however, always implicit.
It's in the tone of voice.
What kind of chump are you not to know that?
No comments:
Post a Comment