Sunday, August 21, 2016

Sunday Punishment


A Definition: Punish (from the Latin, punic, meaning Carthaginian). 1) sort or type of a pun. 2) to make, i.e. force, someone to listen to terrible puns for no reason at all on a day other than Sunday. 3) to tie a wrongdoer to a chair and force him or her to catch the entire three seasons of Gilligan's Island, including the original broadcast commercials, continuously and without interruption. Punishment. The act of punishing. It is vital that everyone understand the inherent danger of punishment. This danger cannot be understated. It can be insidious, creeping into the conversation at any point. It cannot, however, be subtle. One way of knowing for certain that you are being punished is this lack of subtlety – punishers tend toward the obvious and downright silly. One should never take it personally if victimized by a punisher. They cannot help themselves. They are out of control. And once a rant begins, they have no concern for whomever they target or for collateral damage. Interventions, the Twelve Step Program, even prolonged psychiatric counselling does not seem to help: punishers truly have major self-control issues. Again, it is nothing personal. But this is why a law was enacted restricting punishing to only on Sundays. Wait...Is that...Just in my house? Tolerance is asked for in these sad cases. No harm was meant. Laughter only encourages the punisher; groans are like the music of affirmation to their ears. One in three human beings is a punisher. You probably know one. You may be one, secretly, hiding in your own closet with a Thesaurus and a really scary clown suit. Spam for lunch, anyone?

No comments:

Post a Comment