Something worth fighting about

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

By Richard Anderson

I was hanging out with a buddy last week at his place, just enjoying a post-work beer and shooting the breeze. We were talking about what we did last weekend, what we were planning for the coming weekend, how we were going to afford to ski this winter, plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In the background, the TV news was reported on the latest chaos in the Middle East. It was mostly the usual stuff – suicide bombers blowing themselves and others up, border skirmishes between the Turks and Kurds, and the assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, which killed 136 bystanders but not its intended target.

“What a bunch of crazed maniacs,” my friend said. “Why do those people keep behaving that way? What are they hoping to accomplish with all the bloodshed and destruction?”
I agreed with him, shaking my head and wondering aloud how people, fellow country men no less, could treat one another so poorly.

“You’ve got to wonder if there isn’t something wrong with the culture, with the society, with the people in general over there,” my friend said. I agreed. While I usually don’t like to make gross overgeneralizations about large groups of people, the way things have been going over there I was really beginning to wonder myself. Short of some widespread moral deficiency, what on Earth could motivate people to treat each other that way?

We riffed and ranted a while longer, then a report came on about the election – or rather, the longest lead-up to an election in the history of elections.

“Uggh,” my friend said. “Who cares!” he yelled at the newscaster. “Can’t we change the channel?”

We found a channel airing an old episode of “Friends,” that one where Chandler gets his head stuck in a turkey – hilarious! – and watched with rapt attention, breaking the silence only with our laughter. Afterwards, another episode came on. Then a couple “Seinfeld” episodes came after that. During the commercials we reminisced about our favorite episodes and how “Seinfeld” was so much funnier than “Friends,” especially the later installments.

My friend, however, said that the “Friends” chicks were hotter than “Seinfeld’s” Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I disagreed and this started an argument that escalated quickly and unexpectedly until I told him I thought he was an idiot. He told me to get the hell out of his house and I did so gladly. But not before knocking the bowl of Cheetos off the coffee table and dropping my half-empty beer bottle on his front stoop. What a jerk!

PERMALINK:
Something worth fighting about | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

Leave a Comment