Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted April 1, 2008 )

1. What she said: “I hate people and their drama. I wish they would just get over it.”

What she meant: “I actually like drama quite a bit, otherwise I wouldn’t post this message on numerous bulletin boards so that everybody could ask me questions about what I’m referring to, which is actually something about a minor altercation at a bar that is of absolutely no interest to anyone.”

2. What he said: “I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you.
What he meant: “I cheated with your best friend.”

3. What he said: “I lack discipline and a real sense of mission and purpose in my life.”
What he meant: “I joined the Army, dad.”

4. What she said: “Jim Carrey is a comic force that elevates the material he’s given.”
What she meant: “Jim Carrey hasn’t made a good movie since ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.'”

5. What he said: “I have always thought that the best shot in the arm to the American economy is letting Americans keep more of their money in their own pockets and using it the way they want to, which fosters growth.”

What he meant: “I’m bailing out the biggest banks with a shitload of money, just like Herbert Hoover did.”

6. What she said: “People have a right to wait until June to make the final decision about who their candidate for president is.”

What she meant: “I am sorely lacking in delegates, and my appeal to superdelegates might at this point seem like I’m trying to steal the election and nullify the popular vote, so I ask you all to ride out the clock so we can wait until the big electoral prize of Pennsylvania comes into play, a state which, to many people’s surprise, is chock full of backwater crackers.”

7. What he said: “Michigan voters are divided, and a recount there would not add much to this very heated election.”

What he meant: “I wouldn’t mind disenfranchising voters in Michigan and Florida to keep my lead, even though it’s kind of sleazy that so many people’s votes are going to be tossed out like so much leaching plastic into a landfill.”

8. What she said: “President Bush has acted swiftly to counteract the crises in the financial markets, creating stimulus packages and brokering deals that would keep large financial institutions from melting down.”

What she meant: “We’re rewarding the worst investment banks for their part in the predatory mortgage crisis by bailing out Bear Stearns to the advantage of large rival JPMorgan, who will be able to buy it at a fire-sale price. In effect, we’re rewarding people for bad behavior because that’s what capitalism is all about.”

9. What he said: “A person suffers when he’s too wrapped up in himself and his sorry daily life, and he needs to have a greater goal, an existential purpose, one that forces him to realize what he’s on Earth for.”
What he meant: “I’m going to commit a criminal act and get into the paper to impress Jessica Alba.” *

10. What she said: “I’m just so happy to be on ‘American Idol’ after chasing my dream for so long.”
What she meant: “I’ve already had a $2 million record deal that went nowhere and caused MCA Records to take a bath.”

11. What he said: “I am Osama Bin Laden and I am going to attack within the United States.”
What he meant: “I am Osama Bin Laden and I am going to attack within the United States.”

*Editor’s note:  No. 9 originally used different language and suggested a comical reference to the film “Taxi Driver,” particularly the speaker’s interest in harming a political figure, and of course John Hinckley’s attempted political assassination of Ronald Reagan to impress a celebrity. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I noticed after I originally posted this article on MySpace in April 2008, I started to encounter technical difficulties and couldn’t post new blog entries for a couple of weeks.  Later, this entire post you are reading now was removed from my Myspace blog, not by me. My assumption is that becuase I used a first-person speaker threatening a political assassination in a fictional context and because a reference to Osama Bin Laden appears later, it alerted concerned parties who removed it. I have decided to rephrase No. 9 just because I wouldn’t want to think that this silly little joke had somehow put me on an alert list with the NSA.