I failed the bar exam my first try. I mistakenly thought I was such a genius, I didn’t need to study. Plus, I was paranoid that some undeserving law student would slip in and takeover my first real, highly important and much coveted job in the movie industry if I took time off to study.
I worked for a company boasting a solid group of Stanford Law School graduates who were oh-how-they-knew-it smart. I’d attended a small, private law school. I felt not so smart. The very day the bar exam results were unveiled, this is what I heard in the company conference room, when all were present, coming from a nasally, whiny voice befitting a dwarfish, three legged, blind rat with a cane, dark shades and thinning fur, limping around in search of her next morsel. The voice, if one can call it that, was completely devoid of warmth or charm, and belonged to a witchy attorney, Rodent, Rhoda, who was one of the Stanford grads (no, I am not bitter),
“So. Did you pass?”
I considered raising my dejected self up and lying through my clenched teeth, but I couldn’t do it. I blurted out the truth to which she responded with a hideous, I-knew-it smile.
I received many apologies for Rhoda’s behavior that day, from all the attorneys except Rhoda. I did pass the exam the second time after I took a short leave and was promised by my angelic boss that she would place her foot in the door until my return.
Revenge came later when two very agreeable, pleasant lawyers (not an oxymoron) and myself went to an ultra hip restaurant for lunch, as entertainment attorneys are wont to do now and then. Rhoda, at the last minute, invited herself to tag along. As you may imagine, inviting herself was Rhoda’s only means of leaving the office now and then, short of business meetings when her presence was absolutely required. At twenty-seven, Rhoda was only a year or so older than the rest of us, but you’d never know it. I don’t want to say that she was unattractive, because it was more than that. Misery, greed, selfishness and unbridled ambition can twist around a person’s features.
Rhoda may have made a point of using me as her subject of humiliation, but on our lunch day, it was her turn. And I didn’t lift a finger or say a word. While the rest of us were carded as we entered the restaurant (you ladies out there can especially appreciate the significance of this small, but enormously complimentary action), the Maitre d’ told Rhoda that he didn’t need to see her ID. She was obviously older than the rest of us. Rhoda was none too happy.
Don’t believe for a minute that stupers ever get away with their sometimes cruel and always idiotic deeds and words. It always returns to hit them smack in the back of the head. The proper response to insulting stupidity depends on you. If you should offer an insult in exchange for one, how would it make you feel afterward? Small, like your head is where your ankles used to be? In that case, an insult is not in order. However, if you feel the insult will put a stop to future acts of stupidity or possibly jolt the dolt into thinking, then by all means, indulge.
We shouldn’t expect too much from the meager mind. In fact, we shouldn’t expect anything. This would make it far easier to accept the presence of stupidity.
Keep thinking.
Keli
Keli@counterfeithumans.com