Surely, I Could At Least Steal A Better Python.

   
     I just read an article in which we, you and me and all the other people who live within the largely artificially created borders of these conglomerated states, were universally labeled as narcissists. Now, I feel I can pretty much speak for every other person who resides within said borders when I say, "What? ME? Well, maybe, but everyone else is way worse than me. I'm not that bad. Compared to some of these other people, I could be considered quite great. I mean, come on, I could go online and find a bunch of people way worse. Some of my favorite sites are pretty much only about how awful everyone else is."
      We could say that, and then we could go online and make ourselves feel better by mocking a bunch of people who have done or said or written terrible, stupid, or terribly stupid things. We could also turn on a few reality shows, and bask in the glory of how much better we are as viewers of it than they are as stars of it. Or, we could perhaps realize that doing such things benefits only the creators of them, and instead put in some energy transforming ourselves into the awe inspiring role models we already believe ourselves to be.
     Which sounds like an awful lot of work, and who wants to do that? I think it's easier, and thus obviously better, if we just insist on living our lives by comparing them to the lives of everyone else, because we can always find someone whose terrible deeds receive far more attention than our own.
     And speaking of professional athletes (rimshot!), I could spend an awful lot of digital ink and paper on the NFL alone, considering how its players, coaches, owners and whatnot seem get away with all kinds of nonsense. Spousal abuse, animal abuse, infidelity, drug abuse, even murder. Actually killing other people. Never mind the financial shenanigans, I'm not even going to get into those. But what difference would it make? It's a religion just as much as any other, and if you don't believe me, ask your favorite football fan when they last prayed. I bet you money it was when their team was losing. And yes, yelling at the screen counts, since it has about as much influence on any situation's outcome. We could actually make a real list of all the terrible stuff professional athletes and their management, and not just in the world of football, get away with, and people would still line up to spend insane amounts of money on tickets to games and replica jerseys and poster and autographs. The most we'd be likely to get is a muttered admission that things could be better, and then someone might get suspended for a game or two. And that's not going to make us feel better about us, is it? If we got caught doing most of this stuff, we'd probably go to prison, because we're clearly not as valuable to the world.
     So let's instead focus on some lower level people we can mock, shall we?
     For instance, how about those people who are getting myriad plastic surgeries to make themselves look more like Barbie and Ken dolls? Personally, I only just heard about the Ken doll guy, but after finding out about the so called "Living Barbie" a while back, I wasn't all that surprised. Now, friends and neighbors, this ought to make you feel pretty good about whatever physical imperfections you may be metaphorically or literally flagellating yourself over, because at least you haven't gone so far round that particular bend that you're trying to make yourself look like a toy.
     Thankfully, instead of ignoring these self obsessed people, we've given them news stories and websites, so they can finally get all that attention for which they've so deformed themselves. Even if it is just because of how weird we think they are.
     The only trouble here is that after you take a second to think on it, making fun of these people seems a little pointless, doesn't it? It's actually kind of sad that anyone's claim to fame is an odd obsession with appearance and plastic surgery. So let's try again.
     Oh, how about that woman in New York who crashed her Prius into a firehouse with a snake -which she apparently stole- wrapped around her neck. Right? Wait a minute though; it gets better. The article, after taking a moment to note that fire personnel who were on scene rendered first aid to the woman -remember where she crashed?- goes on to say that officials are uncertain if the crash was caused by intoxication or being strangled by the aforementioned stolen snake, but marijuana was found, because of course it was.
    Oh, and by the way, the woman was charged with reckless driving, driving while intoxicated, unlawful possession of marijuana, reckless endangerment in the second degree and petty larceny. She, and you knew this was coming, decided to plead not guilty.
     Now that makes me feel pretty good about me. There's no way I'd be stealing snakes and crashing Priuses (Priusi? Priusese? Priusts? I don't know, none of these are especially good. How about... Priusauruses, just because why not?) into firehouses. I'd take my Priusaurus (keeping it) and find myself something that needs to be run into by an intoxicated person being strangled by a stolen python.
    Like a spouse abusing professional athlete, for instance.
    Also, as a final detail, the article points out that small ball pythons are smaller and more docile than other types of pythons.It does not say why this is relevant, but I wanted to include it, because it gave me an idea for a title which I liked, and that made me feel pretty great.
-John