Saturday, March 26, 2011

Don't Use Your Fists, Use Guilt.


Physical violence is a chumps game. Pretend for a moment you don't think that it is morally wrong to beat your spouse or children. Pretend for a moment that you didn't enjoy pounding on your younger siblings when you were a kid. At the end of the day physical violence is going to leave marks. Mom and dad or the police are eventually going to find out that you are a shitty person, and you'll probably get grounded or go to jail. There is a much better way of getting people to do what you want instead of hitting them, and that way is through guilt.


Physical violence requires you to be in close proximity of your victim. If your target is more agile than you they might be able to escape your grasp. Worse, they might be able to outrun you long enough that you grow too tired or bored to give them a savage beating. How can you assert your dominance over something that you can't catch?This brings me back to guilt, mental kung fu. Guilt is a telekinetic energy. It can affect people from great distances and is highly potent from close range. Sciency people in a lab somewhere have deduced that there is enough power in one guilt laden phone call from a disappointed mother to level 15 square miles of earth. Used at close range guilt can ruin 10 years of Thanksgiving and Christmas with aftershocks that resonate into summer vacation, birthdays or any other time that the individual(s) considers sacred.




Picture this: A family member calls and tells you that they are eating pizza. There is no way that you can be there to share in the bliss that is eating pizza. You feel bad because you would like some pizza. You also feel bad because they seem to be enjoying themselves without you. Since you can't bring yourself to their level of enjoyment what do you do? You use guilt. You say to them in a glum tone "I wish I had pizza." You then go on to say "Could you save me some?" Wait for them to stumble through a pregnant "I guess so." Before you add "No, it's okay, you don't have to save some if you don't want to." Checkmate. This simple move has been passed down from mother to mother through the generations. If it's ever been used on you, you are a victim of guilt. The purpose of this move is not to get gratification from eating pizza but to make the other person feel so badly for eating without you that they don't enjoy it.


The only problem with guilt is that the seeds have to be sown early. As soon as you have children or as soon as your baby brother or sister is born you have to start working your magic. The recipe for guilt is as follows:


2 cups of love
2 cups of expectation
3 tablespoons of never quite satisfied
4 drops of vanilla extract
add salt to taste.




Guilt is all about feeling inadequate. The more inadequate you can make a person feel without them cracking from the pressure the better. Even if you yourself are too lazy or terrible at the activity you are trying to guilt someone into doing, you must always speak with an air of superiority. Over time the masters of the art of guilt can limit there responses to a particular look or an exhalation of breath. Once you have someone under your guilt spell you may even get lucky enough to have them start guilting themselves. "What would mother say if I didn't make the bed with hospital corners?"


Certainly there are some side effects to the overuse of guilt like depression, thoughts of suicide, low confidence, social atrophy. All in all though the benefits far outweigh the risks, so get out there and guilt someone today!



7 comments:

  1. Everything you say is very true. Especially the part about "sciency people in a lab somewhere."

    But reading this post makes me depressed. You don't want to make me feel sad, do you? It's okay if you do, I understand.

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  2. haha. I'm laughing because I think that you are trying to create a faux sense of guilt. Unfortunately, I'm unsure, thus I feel a little guilty on the off chance that you are serious.

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  3. I was a teenage child of divorced parents, play that one right and you become a master of the guilt double whammy.

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  4. i always forget to add the vanilla extract!

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  5. Love it!! Too true! Now if only I could find the recipe for making MILs feel guilty, especially when they are in the wrong. Like having missed her only grandson's 1st birthday because she was mad at me and a little at my husband!! But I think people have to have a conscience in order to feel guilty about what they've done and I'm starting to think that she really doesn't or it's highly under-developed. But I love the guilt recipe!!

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  6. I always bake my guilt at 450. You?

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  7. oh drone ... seriously ... this was too funny ... did you get the recipe from my family?!

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