Never Really Liked People

“You’re such a failure”, the fat, ugly woman hissed, gorging herself with another donut she’d just purchased at the counter. She liked her car outside, because she was not a failure. Her car was a great car. She really liked her great car. The bank liked her car too, and they loved that she paid for a little part of it every month.

The elderly man shuffled away from her screams, chuckling to himself, because he darned well wasn’t chuckling to anyone else. “I don’t reckon I want much of that success business”, he said, pulling out his pipe.

“Oh, you don’t! Well, you, you… you are a failure! You aren’t a success like me!” She paused for a second, waiting for him to admit his defeat, his social destruction, and her superiority. He just blinked his eyes and puffed his pipe. He thought she was kind of a moron.

She began pleading. “You don’t have a car like mine, you just drive that old garbage can! And my house is bigger, and my children go to an expensive private school, and you don’t even have a family! What a miserable failure!”

A middle-aged businessman in the back of the shop that they were all at chimed in to help the fat lady. “You know, she’s got a point. You’ve failed old man. I mean, you just come in here and sit for an hour every morning. You’ve had your whole life to work hard and to become something, and to make everyone else happy. And what did you do? You just work that part time job, and come in here every morning to smoke that darned pipe, and read a novel from the library. Just what do you think you’re doing?”

The old man thought this was all pretty funny. He didn’t talk to people much. Never quite saw the need. The people he saw who talked to other people, well, they looked busy and depressed, even though they were always smiling and grinning when with other people. Seemed kind of like some sort a game, and he wasn’t too fond of games, you see. So he just didn’t play it.

The world was always on cue for them, and they acted their parts incredibly well. It was great becuase the audience was always crying with the drama, screaming with the anger, and laughing with the comedy that no one calls the game. The game isn’t over, and it can’t be over. Games and acting, lies and laughing, welcome to your worldly success.

He stood up slowly, put on his old Wal-Mart cap, and began to move across the room. The people who were watching the little social exploitation by the fat lady and the businessman were expecting a defense or a speech, just like you see on TV.

But, see, the old man didn’t watch much TV, and didn’t know they wanted him to be an idiot, and reason without reason, so he just kept walking. He dumped his trash, refilled his coffee and walked out the door.

He never really liked people, thought they were kind of odd. They never liked him, thought he was kind of odd. This sealed it.