Some People

What for?

I tend to avoid people who gloat. Braggarts exhaust me. My immediate compulsion is to disappear. It's yet another circumstance where I would love a magic remote control so I could press the pause option and interrupt all that showboating thus allowing me to, uh, pull an (e)scapegloat.

What do people have to gloat about anyway? It's just not Canadian boring.

I only recall one sustained gloat-fest encounter from which I couldn't escape. Many years ago we invited some new neighbours over, a couple we thought we might have a lot in common with but had never socialized with before. After dinner we were talking about something, the women in one room, the men in another (as usual, sadly) when suddenly the gloater randomly asked me if I wanted to see his American Express gold card.

I laughed in his face.

This was followed by an short awkward pause during which I searched his eyes for some punch line and then with my questioning eyes I remember whispering "seriously?" Oddly, he was not at all phased by my reaction. So what's a guy to do when confronted with some weird-ass dominance hierarchy scenario in his very own living room? Being poor and completely disinterested in this sort of posturing and clearly happy to be the beta male in this situation, I shrugged my shoulders and nodded as he opened his wallet. I recall chuckling somewhat still wondering if he was just messing with me. But nope. He was indeed serious, obviously blinded by some sort of clinical case of "gloatitis," because after the exalted card was held up like the Lion King he then provided, verbally, an itemized list of purchases, the insane cost of his wife's engagement ring, blah, blah, blah....

Yup. That was the first time I met Donald Trump. *wink* I realize now he may have pissed on one of my trees before he left my yard that night. Anyway, we didn't invite them over again after that. My wife and I don't enjoy gloat-cheese.

Here's an idea: instead of a gloat button, why not a whoop-whoop button? There's nothing wrong with celebrating one's accomplishments but as the saying goes, "flattery is all right as long as you don't inhale."