A recurring peeve of mine is "friends" — I'm intending a slightly-sarcastic usage of that noun — who love to tell you things that they hope will make you mad or make you cry or in some way disrupt your happiness. There was a writer-acquaintance who, during the eight-or-so-years that I did the Garfield & Friends TV show, would periodically send me notes that would say "Checked the ratings and it looks like your show's a sure bet to be canceled."
That was never true, not for a minute. We were the highest-rated program on CBS's Saturday morning schedule for much of that time and even when the show did finally end, it was because the producers chose to end it despite an offer (though not a great one) from CBS to do another season. In fact, one time when the "friend" told me we were on the chopping block, it was right after we'd just gotten a pick-up for three more years.
But some people are like that. They so love to tell you bad news that they can't even wait until it's real.
He tried to make it sound like he was a pal trying to alert me to something for my own good but he wasn't a good enough writer to pull that off. I always knew he was making things up just to try and wound me and for a time, I wondered why he did that. It didn't take much wondering to finally figure out he was just an unhappy guy. No matter what successes he had in his life — and he had several — he was still just an unhappy guy and I guess misery does love company.
When I discussed him with a few other friends — the true kind, not the faux kind — they all said the same thing. He couldn't help but piss on everyone else's good news and while he pretended to be a buddy while pissing, he didn't fool anyone. One true friend said, "He kept telling me I was about to be fired and I kept asking myself, 'Why is he telling me this?' If I was being fired, I'd find out soon enough."
True…but then he might not be there to see your expression or to hear you moan.
Election Night last week, I was sitting here not watching the election returns and I got an e-mail from a Trump-favoring "pal" (again, the quotes denote sarcasm) telling me he was "sorry" (yeah, right) that the Democrats were going down to such a smashing defeat in Georgia. I took a quick peek at the CNN site to see if it was true and at that moment, the G.O.P. candidates were each about two points ahead in the total.
I didn't — and this is just me being dumb — notice that we were at something like 70% of precincts reporting. Those races were far from being called. One of them wouldn't even be final until the following afternoon. I was also dumb to not remember that this guy was not exactly a pillar of truth. But at that moment, I believed what he told me.
Disappointed but not crushed after his call, I tried to get my mind back to the script on which I was working. It was hard but I managed it. A couple hours later when I took a break and turned on the TV, one of the Democratic candidates (Raphael Warnock) was claiming victory and the other (Jon Ossoff) was ahead. Moreover, three different channels I checked said that the yet-to-be-counted vote was mainly in Democratic areas and that turned out to be true.
I didn't know for sure that they'd win but I did know that when my "friend" had told me they'd lost, it wasn't true. He just said that to be an asshole…and I should point out here that this is not a slam at Republicans. I know Democrats who do that kind of thing too. Assholes come in all shapes and sizes, all races, all political parties, all religions, etc. They're easier to spot when they're not part of your group but that doesn't mean they aren't there — somewhere lurking about.