I get off on emotionally neglecting my neighbor’s wife at holiday parties.

Every conversation we’ve ever had, I cut her out. Physically and otherwise. As soon as she opens her mouth to talk I chime in and interrupt her. I am a naturally outgoing and conversational fellow so nobody notices that I’m doing it. My dialogue is so intruiging and engaging, my voice loud and boisterous, my stamina and confidence humble all around me. I can’t help but steal the show in any group setting. And I always get what I want. Every year our neighborhood has a total of five holiday parties: Easter, Memorial Day, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Every year I dress in my best, I bring an exotic and stunning date with a personality nearly as sharp as mine but never quite bold enough to imasculate me. Every year I catch Jim and Janice fighting in some empty spare bedroom, every year Janice pleading with Jim to say something, every year Jim denying Janice’s allegations that I am targeting her in some way. “That’s impossible. ______ is such a nice guy! He’s the life of the party! I can see why you’d be jealous but maybe just chat up a different circle of people. We’re all adults, Janice.” But he was wrong and he knew it. He knew I hated Janice with every microliter of malice flowing through my pre-hypertensive veins. Janice knew that he knew. We all knew. Jim is a pussy, a coward. And if I somehow didn’t personally intimidate him by mere presence, then my girls and my lavish lifestyle did. Jim would never show it for fear of me validating his own belief that he is weak and a failure, a settler and not a striver. Sometimes Janice cries. I soak it up like an old loofah left in some forgotten bathroom drawer for years, stowed behind extra bottles of shampoo left behind by an old roommate. Why do I do this? Nineteen years ago at the bus stop Janice saw me picking up worms off of the street to save them from the rain. Janice thought I was weird. At the time, I was fragile and my self-esteem quite malleable. Janice called me a freak and she smacked the hundreds of earthworms from my open palms, strewn about the wet gravel and asphalt that I had worked tirelessly all morning saving them from. Janice stomped every single creepy crawler to death right in front of me. What a terrible day for rain. She told everyone in the school bus. I sat alone for the next five years before transferring to another school district. But now, now I had beaten Janice. Her infraction all but forgotten. I watched Janice cry five times a year every year until she got on the medicine. Once I noticed the sedation in her behavior I knew I could stop. Janice had succombed to me. Jim encouraged her to take the medications. And as soon as she did, as soon as they sank their roots into her and she became dependant on them, that’s when I stopped. And Janice didn’t know. She had no idea. In time she came to believe that she WAS, in fact, imagining everything, that the medication had given her clarity. But she was wrong. She stopped painting, this was her passion. I still save the worms at the bus stop on rainy days, I bring them home to my composting bins. Fuck you, Janice. Enjoy your life of comfortable mediocre sedation. I’ve won.