To many these days, there’s nothing more satisfying than making fun of something or someone they don’t understand, without realizing how very much they misunderstand that “those people” do, in fact, understand, but are too polite, or Canadian, to say anything — which the original misunderstanders probably won’t understand, but then, after an eye-blink of thinking they will tell big fat lies and allow that they have been misunderstood because, yes, of course they understand perfectly, very perfectly, and to prove it they begin to boil down their understandings and misunderstandings into great bubbles of understandably evil off-gassing.

Can I get an Amen, here?

Take, for instance, evil.  How hard is evil to understand? Evil is bad, nothing else to say, right? In fact, one might expand one’s understanding of evil to cover all bases and say evil is bad and bad is evil. But be careful, because bad evil is a whole different style of banjo.

Let’s just say you are bad or evil – not both. You will likely be pulled out of line at the airport for a full bad-or-evil cavity search and then asked to swear never to be bad or evil again. When you agree, the frisker says “Well, okay then.” You can scurry back into line without ever being asked about being bad evil. Which, ironically, is bad or evil but — because of Obamacare — never both.

Yes, it can get confusing. Take this simple test that will help you sort out bad from evil

The monster hiding under your bed is

1. Sad
2. Bad
3. Evil
4. Dusty
5. A dusty bastard.

Bad bad Leroy Brown is

1. Bad
2. Bad bad
3. Meanest man in the whole damn town
4. Badder than old King Kong
5. He wants you to believe King Kong is just bad or just evil, hoping you won’t notice his bad-evil accent.

If you grab someone’s erogenous zone in public you are

1. Erroneous
2. Elected president
3. Accused by Evil men of being Evil, you sly dog, you
4. Evil, evil bo beevil, banana panna po peevil, fee fi mo mevil, E-vil.
5. Dramatically ironic

A libertarian, a Gelusil tablet and a depressed bear walk into the path of a speeding bus. Which one suffers most in death?

1. The depressed bear (Just when I realize I can walk and talk, I get run over by a bus)
2. The libertarian (I kept getting myself confused with a librarian and now this.)
3. The Gelusil tablet (When they tell you to chill and chew a couple Gelusil, they mean a couple, not just a singleton, and so then I have to explain to the media why I’m alone and how my Gelusil partner was eaten by a depressed bear, which, 10 times out of ten gives me pre-death heartburn.)
4. The bear claw, formerly attached to the arm of a depressed bear. (Look, I saw it in the street and went for it. How was I supposed to know the claw belonged to an actual bear who got very depressed over losing his claw. But look, if it helps, I have to say it was one of the better bear claws I have eaten.)

The basketball team of the electoral college is playing round ball with the men from the college of cardinals in Madison Square Garden. To many observers this is a classic matchup of Bad-Idea-Evil versus Evil With A Red Dress On. Discuss.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2020, all rights reserved.