Devil Monkey Boy

There's this little game I like to play. It's called "Spot the Asshole". The way it works is this. I will be out in the city. Walking or sitting, it makes no difference. Then I'll detect that certain odor. It smells like Fatty Arbuckle took a great big steaming dump then lit it on fire. And I'm not talking about Fatty as he was, but rather Fatty these 70 years dead, decayed, and now somehow animated to defecate.

Ugh.

Where was I? Oh, right, zombie Arbuckle's lighting a doody. So I smell that smell and commence to play...

SPOT!

THE!

ASSHOLE!

(The above works best if you imagine it in the voice of Wheel of Fortune's audience. I work best if you pay me in Service Merchandise gift certificates and Toblerone.)

This game rarely lasts long. All I need to do is find the guy with the cigar. He (yes, always he) will be puffing away and wearing a big shit-eating grin, which is really pretty appropriate, come to think of it.

I give him my New York Stink-Eye. It's a baleful gaze that can mean many things, depending on context. In this case it says, "No, I don't care if it is a Cohiba, you inconsiderate fuck. You are an ass. If you've a shred of courtesy, you'll put it out or go far from any living soul." They almost never do. I suspect part of their pleasure comes from the fact it's at the expense of others. Either that or they' re mind-numbingly thick. Take your pick. Obliviousness doesn't absolve asshole behavior.

It would be one thing if these stogie-smoking shitbirds were a rare species, but as I write this I see three of them in the park (one of these upwind from his family, exhaling into his daughter, nice). Spot the Asshole would be more fun if I didn't get to play so damned often.