Matt Sumell - Making Nice

Thing is she didnt think that pots and pans should go in the dishwasher, so I pointed out that theres a setting on the dishwasher for pots and pans, just look, its right there, open your fuckin eyeballs. Well she didnt like that very much and started in with this business about me being a loser headed nowhere and all that, which normally wouldnt get me going except that it might be true, also cause it was coming from someone who supposedly cares about me and who I care about and blah blah blah I mean, Ive pretty much looked up to her my whole life shes been like an older brother to me, but a lady.

Anyway she didnt mean it I dont think, maybe a little, but really it was just her best-guessing what would hurt me most, and Id be lying if I said I havent done the same thing myself in arguments past. Just the other night even this girl in a bar was not nice to my nice friend James so I said, Wow, thats ugly. When she said, What is? I said, Your face. Now get outta here. It wasnt true, but I was pretty sure it would hurt her feelings, and as it turned out I was correct. I could tell I was correct cause she started crying and called me a fuckin dick, only when she said it, it sounded more like deck, fuckin deck! and then she gave me the middle finger and headed off all wiggly-wobbly on her high heels in the direction of the ladies room.

Also, along similar lines maybe, any racial thing that comes out of my mouth, if not an attempt at humor, is meant only to injure. For example one time this Asian guy was walking extra slow across this crosswalk holding an orange, so I rolled down my window and said, How about you just pick up the pace a little, Ninjerk. I got places to be and stuff. I didnt mean it, the Ninjerk bit, its just that he was pissing me off and I wanted to piss him off. I know theres a racial sensitivity there, which minus the modifier is exactly like any other sensitivity: easily exploited. Theres no sincerity in it, only malice, which is exactly what I suspect about my sister calling me a loser, except she mightve meant it a little. Im not sure.

Either way it made me upset, and I slammed the refrigerator door so hard the milk exploded, then I turned around and told her to shut it or Id punch her mustache off her face and watch it fly across the room like a hairy bug. Then I flapped my arms like I was flying, like a bug, like her mustache. Now, I know I crossed a line there, but I hope some people can at least appreciate how much restraint it actually took on my part to not just turn around and haul one off on her. Knowing some people will find that difficult to appreciate, let me employ this awesome analogy: My temper is like a rogue wave of weapons, and my ego is like the dam holding back the rogue wave of weapons from being unleashed on the townspeople/-person, in this case my sister. Sometimes, though, the wave of weapons is too big or powerful or whatever, and some squeeze through a crack or splash over the top or whatever. Its unfortunate, sure, but dont I deserve at least some credit for holding back 99 percent of the entire wave of weapons that I couldve just as easily unleashed on her if I wasnt a good person/ego/dam? More important, she was making fun of the ego/dam, provoking it to break or whatever. So in a sense she was sabotaging me, like a fuckin saboteur. Like a fuckin dirty, no good, no-pot-washing, dandruff-having lady saboteur. My point, then, is didnt she, in some way, cross a line first? I think so, and that is number one on my list of seven excuses as to why it was OK for me to punch my sister in the tits.

1) She started it. I know thats a childish thing to say but

2) When adult siblings revisit the house they grew up in, they often regress back to behaving like children.

3) Sibling status overpowers lady status. Siblings dont count as ladies.

4) Testosterone production has a direct link to aggression and fluctuates in response to competitive situations such as a tennis match or arguments about dishwashers or changes in ones perceived status in a social hierarchy, for example a sibling hierarchy, or a dishwasher-deciding hierarchy, or a hairarchy of mustaches (in which case shes the winner hands down). When disrespected, there is a biological response within my balls and they make more stuff that makes more aggression. Try as I might, its out of my control. This admittedly may be a weak argument, but the logic is the same as acting like an asshole then blaming it on PMS.

5) There is a certain clarity in violence. Theres nothing rhetorical or vague about it it means only what it means, which if I had to I would translate as roughly: I dont like you right now, a lot. Less roughly translated of course depends on the particulars, and considering these particular particulars Id have to go with: The fact that you are insulting me in addition to being more intelligent, eloquent, calmer, successful, plus have all your hair and an apartment and a job that you actually care about frustrates me so greatly that I am going to dominate you physically because its the only area in life in which I think I have the upper hand. However you translate it, though, it isnt really all that cruel or enduring. In my experience physical suffering is more transitory than emotional suffering. Words, on the other hand, do lasting damage. Theres no taking them back. Not really.

6) One time I punched a boyfriend of hers in the face repeatedly because she told me he hit her. Years later she admitted to me she made it up because she was mad at him. He died in a car wreck before I could apologize. Another time this jerk-off in a bar was being a jerk-off to her, and I told him to knock it off. He did, for the most part, and as I made my way back to the table she came running over to me and said, So-and-So doesnt think you have the balls to hit him. I was younger (dumber) and drunk (extra dumber) and had a canine sense of loyalty, all of which she knew, so Im sure she figured my reaction would be some version of Oh yeah? which it was. I turned around and walked back over to the guy, tapped him on the shoulder, and slugged him in the ear, et cetera. That makes two out of an approximate forty instances of violence in my life that she in some way instigated, which if my math is correct equals 5-ish percent. My question then is, how can someone who has more than once taken advantage of what I consider brotherly goodwill cry foul when that sort of attention is directed at them? Its all kinds of wrong.

7) She was literally asking for it. After I threatened her she got in my face and yelled, You think that makes you a big man? Huh? You gonna hit me, big man? Well go ahead and hit me then. Hit me. Hit me. Hit me, you fuckin piece a shit.

I really want to, I said. Bad.

Go ahead then, you fuckin asshole. Youre a fuckin thirty-year-old fuckin loser, and you know what else, you fuckin thirty-year-old fuckin loser? Mom was right about you, youre a fuckin abusive piece a shit.

The backstory on that comment is that when our mother was close to dying, she called each of us separately into her hospital room for one last one-on-one conversation the opportunity to say all the things wed ever get to say. My sister was called into the room first, and my brother and I waited in the hallway quietly discussing Jennifer, one of the nurses. I told him she was so pretty that I wanted to see her nude, then have sex with her. In so many words he said he wanted the same things, so I told him to back off, but he didnt, so we argued about it. After about ten minutes of this my sister came out looking pretty upset, so we went over and tried our best which was not good to comfort her, then asked what it was like. She told us what was said was private, but that overall it was nothing special, mostly a bunch of