Don’t get me wrong: it doesn’t lodge there alone, but inhabits a gated community alongside an overbearing mother, a tough cookie, a shy poet and a tiny 112-year old woman who likes to embroider nasty words on pretty tablecloths. Most of the time they keep each other at bay, but sometimes the evil one gets the better of them. And I’m very sorry, but you can’t like everybody, there are some people you just loath -the worst ones are those who actually did nothing wrong, which makes you feel guilty, which isn’t a nice feeling, which is another reason to scorn them. Anyway, if you recognize this, here are some ideas to relieve yourself:
- Invite yourself to their house under false pretenses, slip into the kitchen and discretely slide open all their bananas. The joy!
- Offer to drive them to work, pick a particularly sunny day, and keep your windshields wipers running the entire time -“because it keeps them in shape”.
- Is your victim a young mother? Organise a playdate at her home, lure her out of the playroom and instruct your kid to push all the flat Lego pieces it can find together as tightly as his or her little hands allow to.
- While you are at it, don’t forget to pay the bathroom a little visit and varnish all the soap with transparant nail polish.
- Take hostage of them at a nice party, preferably one with friends they haven’t seen for a while and really want to catch up with, and show them a never-ending reel of “funny” YouTube videos. Start with a seven-minute video of falling squirrels and have them laugh politely at the moments you deem most funny. Then don’t let go of them, but switch to a clip of an African pastor trying to read the Bible in French -never mind the fact that it is inaudible due to the loud music at the party- and finish off with a glorious series of horses acting like humans. Do keep a tight arm around their shoulders the entire time in order to minimise any chance of escape and laugh your most irritating laugh every 15 seconds.
- Do invite them to you birthday party/babyshower/wedding/YouTube-funny-movie-night. By all means do, but do it with a glitter bom invitation! Best invention since the eraser, fridge and USB-device if you ask me.
- When they talk to you, pull a surprised face and “discreetly” smell their shoulder. The answer to “what’s wrong?” will of course, always, inevitably be “nothing”. Start over as often as you feel like it, then go on to another person and, whatever you will tell him, do it softly while “discreetly” glancing at Frennemy, so it seems like you two are discussing his or her awful shoulder smell.
- Always carry a bag of dried raisins upon your person, just in case you encounter their lunch or -even better- you have a chance to sneak into their kitchen, and push a bunch of them into every soft food item you can find.
- Buy a bag of carrot seeds and sow a not so sweet message in their lawn. Wait until next spring and send a drone over the house. This one actually has a nice side-effect for them, as carrots are very nutritious vegetables.
- Another vital thing to do in any conversation with them: do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you’ll be saying more any moment. And then just leave. K bye now.
