veni. vidi. vici. mwah ha ha...

This weekend I am attending the wedding reception of someone I hate.

I am perversely looking forward to it. As a boy, this man was one of my best friend's playmates -- his mom and Hillori's mom were both teachers and of "Old North East" stock -- and yet he and I never took to one another. He was mean to me, and I ignored him. This was our pattern. Since he was a year or so older, I didn't really have to put up with him in school, but as he lived down the street from me, he loved to ride by on his bike hurling nasty insults. Granted, I was a weird, quirky, imaginative kid who loved to be weird, quirky and imaginative out in the backyard, and he was popular and had longstanding social standing going back generations whereas my family were mere transplants; but his malice was unwarranted.

So we grew into adults who still hate but studiously ignore each other whenever we happen to meet by accident in public.

A deliberate run-in with him -- in celebration of his wedding, no less -- arose when Hillori called me a few weeks ago.

"Okay, I know you hate each other, but hear me out," she said as soon as I said hello. "I'm going to JerkBoy's* wedding reception in June. I don't have anyone to go with and my invitation says 'Hillori plus one.' I want to hang out but it'll be a busy weekend and this would be my only opportunity to see you before I leave town again. Gina's going, so we'll all get to spend some time together. Plus EvilEx** might be there and it would be nice to have a buffer." She took a breath. "Will you come with me?"

"Sure!" I said.

I think she was expecting me to say no. Or at least have to think about it.

But I actually derive great pleasure from throwing my enemies for a loop. I love deliberate moments of that slight startled pause followed by a series of sidelong glances which are polite society's version of "WTF?!"; and I particularly love causing this with the subtlety of behaving in a perfectly ladylike manner. The best form of rudeness, in my experience, is politeness.*** My mere presence will be mildly discomfiting, and I do fairly well at parties, so others may not notice. And he will have no reason to be upset that I'm there. Plus this situation has the added bonus of exploiting a loophole in the system, and I'm always happy about that.

There's just going to be something so...deliciously Jane Austeny about standing there in the sunshine at a garden party shaking his hand and smiling and congratulating him and partaking of his refreshments when both of us know I don't give a damn.


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* She used his real name but I'll call him JerkBoy to protect his jerky identity.

** She used his real name but I'll call him EvilEx to protect his evil identity.

*** I got to do this in church at New Year's when I attended Gina's parish with her. The cantor looked vaguely familiar, and while I couldn't remember who he was, I knew I disliked him intensely. So from my front-row seat I stared at him throughout the entire Mass with narrowed eyes, trying to place his identity, and my instinctive contempt must have shown on my face, because his eyes caught mine once and he faltered, and during the rest of the service his eyes kept flickering nervously past mine. I was fascinated by my apparent power to make him uncomfortable and tried using different expressions. He got progressively more nervous. After Mass he positively vanished, and Gina said, "Did you see the cantor? Isn't he cute? His name is EgocentricAsshat^."

Everything clicked then and I started yelling. He had in his egocentric asshat youth managed to screw over my sister, my best friend, and also the daughter of one of my mom's close friends, among others. Hating him was easy. And then I laughed for the rest of the day at how uncomfortable I had made him when I still didn't realize who he was. He certainly remembered me.

^ This name too has been changed to protect his egocentric asshat identity.^^

^^ Actually I changed all these names to protect myself; working in the legal field drives me to do that. If these all get into a book someday I may yield to the sore temptation to hire a great lawyer and go right ahead with the real names. Bring on the mean; I will make you immortal.^^^

^^^ Credit goes both to Shakespeare and A Knight's Tale for that concept.