Señor Smartypants: “My flakiness never ceases to amaze me. As does my frequent inability to see the big picture. If I was on The Titanic when it began to sink, pretty sure I would’ve been one of those fools who polished the silverware and rearranged the furniture all the way down; or, as a friend once suggested, perhaps I would have been one of those silly men sitting at the ship’s bar—sipping whiskey, talking too much, laughing out loud, totally oblivious—even as a killer iceberg from hell tore chunks out of the mahogany wall, allowing ice-cold saltwater to pour into the smoky pub. Knowing this about yourself—as St. Paul well knew—is one thing; changing it is another. For instance, last night, Tabby brought me a dead mouse and I screamed like a little girl. Like a little girl, David!”
King David: “Look, Señor Smartypants, you don’t have to eat it: you don’t have to eat the dead mouse. But now’s not the time to tell Tabby the tabby that you’re a vegetarian. Now’s not the time to tell her that it wasn’t killed kosher. Now’s not the time to tell her that the mouse is forbidden to the faithful in Leviticus 11:29. Now’s not the time to tell her that her gift’s gross. When your cute little puddy-cat prances proudly onto the patio—with a spring in her step, and a furry thing in her mouth—when she plops that present down at your feet, magnanimously, triumphantly, altruistically, smile, pet her sweet head, and see the gift for what it is: an act of love—misguided love, perhaps, but love nonetheless.”
Señor Smartypants: “Still waterboarding Ibsen?”
King David: “Yeah.”
Señor Smartypants: “Think he’s gonna crack, tell you who he’s working for?”
King David: “Sooner or later, Señor, sooner or later. Vee have ways, vee have ways of making the kitty talk.”
Señor Smartypants: “He’s not a cat, David. He’s a pillow with a pulse.”
—John Faithful Hamer, The Myth of the Fuckbuddy (2016)
Committing Sociology 