I got called a twat today.
Been a long time since someone hurled that word at me. Now I really don’t care if someone wants to
use that word, but in the setting where I am the authority figure, you betcha I
care a great deal about someone referring to me as a twat, especially when I in
no way shape or form was behaving in the least bit twattish.
Did you know that you can’t even do a search
for the word twat without modifying your search preferences? When I Google twat, it also won’t give me any
responses. A search for “twat origin”
gives a ton of responses for the word origin.
Rephrase to “origin of twat.”
Nothing. “Where did the word twat
come from.” Nothing. “twat AND origin,” “twat + origin,” and
origin of the word twat” all give nada, bupkus, zippo. Maybe I should call Chrysti the Wordsmith at
NPR and ask for some help.
“Hello, you’ve reached Chrysti the
Wordsmith.”
“Hello, I love your
segments. Would you please help me find
the origin of the word twat?”
*click
Thing is, my skin is fairly thick. I’m not going to fall to pieces over being
called a twat. I’m not going to go
through the roof or scream and gnash my teeth at this person. Instead I calmly told her to leave. That was sufficient display for her and the
others. I know the reason she used it is
because she didn’t want to be there and she wanted out. What better way to get out of the situation
than to throw out the most offensive, emotionally-charged word you can think
of, right? When in the face of challenge
and name-calling at work, I prefer to keep my emotional response in check. Not easy mind you and I don’t always succeed,
but today I did. Today I maintained my
unflappable reputation. Today I smiled
and carried on and let the epithet roll off me because I had important stuff to
do dangit! The rest of the people had
stuff to do. We accomplished what we set
out to do after this person left. Today I am proud of how I
handled the situation. I am thankful
that for whatever reason today, my self-control kicked in so that I was able to
manage the situation without showing her any kind of outrage.
Now though, I want wine.
Big—no giant—glass of red wine.
And chocolate. There must be chocolate.
And chocolate. There must be chocolate.
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