To Err Is Human, To Share Is Divine

To be absolutely honest, I blatantly stole that title quote. It’s a line in a book by Margaret Mason called No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. It’s worth the read whether you are a beginning blogger or have been blogging for years (because we all get stumped for ideas sometimes).

Margaret, also known as Maggie of Mighty Girl fame, is one of those Über-bloggers I so admire. She never runs out of “content.”

I bought her book when it first came out in 2007 and then forgot I had it. Don’t tell her that, because we don’t want her to get her feelings hurt. Finally, I picked the book up to read it in my hotel room last weekend, just to see if it had anything I could use for inspiration. Many of the things she listed are ones I’ve already tried over the last two and a half years. But, there were quite a few ideas that were worth repeating.

In the chapter which held my title quote, Maggie said, “All readers need an occasional dose of schadenfreude, so fess up.” I read that and said, “Whut?”

Fortunately, Mr. Tucker was readily available. He took German in High School, and loves to affect an accent that sounds like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Professor Irwin Corey. He could translate for me.

“Die ‘Schadenfreude’ ist der satisfaction or der pleasure taken at someone else’s misfortune.” he said.

I gave him a kiss and thanked him by saying, “Donkey shine!” It’s the only German I know.

Well, really! Do people take satisfaction when other people do unfortunate things?

Yes, I do. It makes me feel so much smarter to see someone else do something silly! I thought I would share an act of stupidity with you, so you can shake your head and be glad you aren’t as goofy as this woman I know.

This woman gets in a hurry sometimes, especially if she is upset. She got an e-mail from a correspondent that made her so angry she was spitting nails. She decided to forward the offending e-mail to a third party and bitc.. “vent.”

It was early in the morning and this woman had NOT consumed enough caffeine. She typed a rambling rant to that third party — the e-mail was chock full of words that would have made her Momma wash her mouth out with Lifebuoy soap! She hit “send” and as that e-mail sizzled its way into cyberspace, that woman leaned back with a smug grin on her face.

Then she glanced at her inbox. On the left side, you know … where it lists the people included in the correspondence, she saw all three names! It took several heart stopping minutes as she frantically looked at the e-mails before I realized … she realized … that she had NOT sent her nasty rant to the first sender.

Whew!

Did y’all ever do anything like that? That woman is never going to do it again, because my heart almost never calmed down! Next time she has the urge to be ugly, she is going to cut and paste!

I tell you whut…

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Any Way You Slice It, They Still Call It Spam
2. “Can I Speak to a HUMAN, Please?”
3. Share A Square: Olly, Olly, In Free
4. A Chance To Help Share A Square Without Crocheting A Stitch
5. Ask A Silly Question, Get A Silly Answer

Tagged as: gaffe, humor, Margaret Mason