Complex Numbers

Giant Red Flags

Just because I'm out of town doesn't mean I'm not going to do another prompt from "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]...

"If you can't handle me at my worst, imagine how I feel."

Of course, I'm very familiar with the quote that riffs off: "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best." In my mind, it's printed in cursive on a stained pink T-shirt worn by a cigarette-smoking, Pabst-swilling single mother of five.

In other words, a Giant Red Flag.

Other common bits of folk philosophy are also Giant Red Flags. For example, "Live, Laugh, Love." Really, this is just the upper-middle-class counterpart to the worst/best quote. Oh, sure, it seems innocuous, but think about the kind of person who has to remind herself to live, laugh, and love instead of, you know... just doing those things.

Anyway. None of that has to do with the quote in the prompt, and probably has some of you ready to come after me with a gun, which in truth would only prove my point. Twisting it to the prompt quote demonstrates a refreshing level of self-awareness. You know you're in a bad mood, maybe spiraling, lashing out... and instead of insisting that really, it's worth putting up with this from you to get to the good parts, you realize you're not fit company and nope out of there.

At least that's how I see it.

Of course, it's often when we're at our worst that we most need other people. Not to give us what we think we want, but to smack us upside the head with what we actually need -- whatever that might be. A joke. A truth. A helpful lie. But they have the choice to put up with us when we're in that condition. We don't. We're stuck with ourselves no matter what. Which, I suppose, is why drugs were invented.

As with the other prompts from this month, I haven't looked it up to determine the source. Whoever it was, though... nice twist.