GIBLET: I never speed.
DUMPLING: What are you talking about? You speed all the time! The only time your speedometer is at the speed limit is when you're accelerating past it or braking because you see a cop in your rear view.
GIBLET: That is a scurrilous accusation! I never speed!
DUMPLING: oooh. Scurrilous. Good word.
GIBLET: Thank you.
DUMPLING: But you do too speed.
GIBLET: I don't.
DUMPLING: Did you get any speeding tickets last year?
GIBLET: [mumblemumblemumble]
DUMPLING: What's that?
GIBLET: yes.
DUMPLING: How many?
GIBLET: [mumble]
DUMPLING: How many?
GIBLET: Three! Three! Okay? Three!
DUMPLING: So you speed.
GIBLET: No, I don't speed. Those times I got a ticket, I was running late.
DUMPLING: Do you have any idea just how alcoholic you truly, truly are?
GIBLET: What do you mean?
DUMPLING: You honestly think that if you have a good enough reason for why you do something the reason actually changes the something you did. That is profoundly, terrifyingly alcoholic.
GIBLET: I... I... I'm gonna think about that, and when I figure it out, I suspect I'm going to be deeply offended!
DUMPLING: You go right ahead. 'cause that would be deeply alcoholic too.
GIBLET: Now you're just irritating.
DUMPLING: Everybody needs a hobby.
I know that thinking. It is astounding how childlike that thinking is. "If I wish hard enough, it will go away" to "If I rationalize or lie enough, what I did will go away".
Posted by: Syd | March 10, 2011 at 04:54 AM
OOoooohhhhhh, or my old favorite: "I was entiltled to behave badly because you did first/you hurt my feelings/you owe me/the world owes me/my shoelace broke"
Posted by: Julie. B | March 10, 2011 at 12:15 PM
"You honestly think that if you have a good enough reason for why you do something the reason actually changes the something you did." Wow—that makes certain aspects of alcoholic behavior so much more painfully, crystallinely clear. I'm going to be saying this one over and over to myself for a long, long time. Thank you.
Posted by: recovering jezebel | March 11, 2011 at 03:16 PM
"No, I don't speed. Those times I got a ticket, I was running late."
Because, as we know, speeding is defined as.... going over the speed limit AND getting caught AND not being late.
So that if one does goes over the limit, without being late, and without getting caught, it's NOT "speeding."
Thanks for the EXCELLENT example, MSP.
I heard a similar one recently: I'm not a sex addict because I only have affairs with people (who I don't like or respect or want to have sex with) FOR THE PURPOSE OF avoiding my unhappy feelings. So, therefore, since I'm not actually enjoying my regularly occurring extramarital sex, I'm not a sex addict.
This is why addiction thrives in isolation: with no reality check we convince ourselves our changed definitions are valid.
Posted by: Jayne Dough | March 12, 2011 at 10:46 AM
Three meetings in, so a bit of a novice (ok, a TOTAL novice) but this really struck a chord. You haven't been following me, have you....?
Posted by: Jojo | March 19, 2011 at 03:56 AM