| I've felt happy about people's deaths before, sometimes without real guilt, sometimes with guilt. Someone like Thatcher, or say, Cheney, I wouldn't feel too bad about. I was thinking of a story when I started this thread, but debated telling it because I feel like an asshole, though I think it's kind of funny. I was working outside one day at a Dominican convent where many of my grade school teachers came from. Going by the graveyard, I saw the fresh grave of a particularly bitter and cruel penguin who, as a substitute teacher, had tormented me when I was between seven and ten years old. This day I was pretty young, probably twenty or so, so I'm giving myself a break here; but I took the opportunity that day to literally dance on her grave. I did one of those one hand on the elbow of the other arm that was pointing in the air shaking at the sky, kicking up my feet and hopping in a circle. The guy who was working with me was a bit appalled, and I'm sure a nun or twenty probably saw me out of their dusty windows. But I didn't care, it seemed that fate had, with a bow and a flourish, just handed me present on a silver platter. I thought I was so clever. I hated that woman, even if I rationally knew she was certainly a very troubled and damaged person, like most crazy assholes. In retrospect, I think more about that last part and feel like a heel, even if she made a bunch of little kids miserable. That's a far cry from Stalin or Pinochet or Idi Amin or Pol Pot or even Strom Thurman. Maybe I should save my dancing for Karl Rove. |
