Revenge is sweet sometimes. Yes, the feeling of getting even is gratifying but often times it comes about by a mean act, sinful really. Sometimes revenge can be a way to settle the score, nicely. A time when nobody gets hurt but the message is heard. I found myself in the most unlikely of situations to kindly get even, sweet revenge in my book. I was giggly with satisfaction, no guilt.
Ahh. Sweet.
With social media, revenge is pretty easy. I’m thinking of those in business of servicing others and not a jaded lover or a friend. (That kind of revenge is messy. Just ask any Hollywood star, sports figure or politician.) Sometimes I think restaurants; retail stores or physicians forget we don’t live in pre-Facebook or pre-yelp times any more. Informing our fellow consumer of iffy service-providers is almost a public duty not really revenge, like a storm warning.
Say for example your family went to a hot new Japanese restaurant on Fourth Street in Berkeley (starts with an ‘I’ and ends with an ‘E’) where the wait to be seated with a reservation was twenty minutes. And say for example once seated the waiter completely ignored your table for another twenty minutes, walking past five times without even a wink or “just a minute.” Well, it’s very easy to say ‘enough is enough’ and walk two doors down to a very friendly, customer-focused Mediterranean restaurant called ZUT to sip cocktails while writing a critical yelp review on a smartphone about the no-service place. And say maybe somebody at the table has a blog. Wow. That’s pretty sweet and so helpful for everyone.
Smells good at least.
In Northern California, we don’t have mosquitoes so much in the summer. The real pests are yellow jackets, a protein-seeking wasp usually found at an outdoor dinner gathering. Yellow jackets can really break-up a garden party and send the crowd indoors. Precautions can be taken such as an organized person setting yellow-colored traps weeks in advance for best results. Or for the more last-minute type, spreading dryer sheets around the table to throw off the meaty scent kind of works but the table is ugly. I swear, I never thought a payback was possible with a pesky yellow jacket until one day…
Feast fit for man or yellow-jacket.
I prepared the grill for a steak. I noticed several yellow jackets buzzing around the BBQ, darting furiously in search of a protein fix. Something was driving them insane. Once I lifted the lid I saw why. Remnants of dried salmon clung to the greasy black bars from the last cookout. I watched the greedy buzzers zoom in for the feast like a vulture on a road-kill squirrel. I could taste the sweet revenge. A smile crept across my face like the Grinch masterminding his Christmas heist from Whoville. I wanted to laugh a sinister laugh but I didn’t know how. I giggled instead and thought how pleased my boys would be with me. I couldn’t wait to push the igniter button, sending flames shooting two feet up into the air. The rascally yellow jackets narrowly missed the licks of fire. Just watching them zip up with fright and out of sight was thrilling. They lived to share a helpful message with friends, “Don’t dine at the fiery restaurant,” just like the one we sent out to fellow diners.
Lesson Book.
Being a parent provides plenty of opportunity for the sweet revenge I’m talking about. We frequently teach our kids a lesson. I noticed my boys treated me like a walking dictionary rather than look up anything on their own. I also noticed their writing needed improvement. My solution: Learn by example. Read any article from the Sunday New York Times, long or short. Summarize it for me and define any new words. Grumbles and furry eyeballs were the initial feedback. Imagine my surprise when the word definitions came up for discussion. The sweet revenge came back as sweet sibling rivalry.
“Trove? You picked trove for your unknown word?” cried out my youngest son.
“I don’t know what it means. Do you?” My oldest son asked him.
“No. But MY word is microentrepreneur.” Retorts the younger son. Clearly his word sounds more sophisticated and is much longer than trove.
“Microentrepreneur? You had to look that up? You couldn’t just figure it out? Says my oldest son.
Sweet revenge is soo sweet.
Share on Facebook