I hate how hard it has become to do a really blasé insult. I remember when “Mind your own bee’s wax” was worthy of a Saved By the Bell “ooooooooooh!” When I was 6, thems was fighting words. As I grew older, the bar got raised. Eventually I realized that in order for an insult to be effective, you had to belittle the other person as well. This brought us to the Pee-Wee inspired days of “I know you are, but what am I?” an insult made legal by the Supreme Court case of Rubber v. Glue. Along came the holy grail of insults, “Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.” But then Alan Fucking Greenspan (yes, that’s his real middle name) comes along, pinches the money supply, inflation kicks in and renders the greatest innovation in insult technology completely worthless. We no longer have that concise putdown at our disposal. It has gotten way too long. “Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares…. Oh shit it’s 35 cents now isn’t it? Ok, here’s a dime and a quarter, call someone who cares. Ok, here’s a dime, a quarter, a moist towellette to wipe off the receiver and a change of pants because that homeless guy over on the corner of 5th and Walnut likes to pee on people when they use the pay phone. You know what? Here, just use my cell phone to call someone who cares. But do it after 9pm, because I’m damn sure not going to waste my peak minutes on your ass. I am insulting you, for crissakes!”
