I love being right. When I’m right and I know it, I gloat merrily, shaking my tail feather until you’re covered in the plumes of your own wrongness. I may or may not play victorious Queen on the iPod. Then I take a picture of your hound dog face, or several hundred of them, so when I leaf through quickly your limp mouth states that you are indeed the world’s biggest loser. If it’s a particularly decisive win, I upload the finest of the bunch to Classmates.com, then contact your ex on Facebook. “You made a wise choice back in ‘95,” I type. Then I stand over your limp body, making you do shots of Mad Dog until you pass out in your own sick. I’m wide eyed, calmed only by the sounds of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I sleep soundly on a bed of my continued success.
I am not a good winner. I am a worse loser when I know that I’m right, when the other party will not acquiesce. A friend came to meet me for lunch last week. He was trying a new route, so I gave him directions coming out of DC. “Take the first exit off the bridge,” I said. Not the second, not the first one past the Pentagon, not the one your inner compass thinks you should take. The first exit off the bridge. He called 10 minutes later and was on the other side of the National Capital world, on the very cusp of Alexandria. He had taken the second exit off the bridge.
“I did what you told me,” he said.
“You couldn’t have. You’d be here by now.”
“You told me not to go to the airport, so I tried not to, but the first exit off the bridge was for the airport.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was.”
He claimed my exit didn’t actually exist, that I must have confused things. I do not confuse such things. In the normal scheme of life details I do not confuse such things, but let the record show that I have taken this first exit at least 400 hundred times in my young life, 200 of them in the last year alone. Every morning. Because I take the first exit to get to work.
On the way home I talked to him as I passed the other way over the bridge. I craned my neck searching for evidence. “I can see the exit from here.” I barked. “You took the wrong one!”
“Suuuuure you can, Kris. I’m quite sure you’re right.”
My blood rose to my face, and I made the noise that indoor cats do when a squirrel taunts them outside a closed window. “At-at-at-at-at-at-at-at!” My ears were perspiring. I was right. I knew it. I set about thinking of ways to prove it, to school him just as a master should. I was right, after all, and he needed to know it.
I started this early. When I was in the fourth grade I fancied myself quite the smarty pants, and told a captive audience of peers at lunchtime that your heart stops briefly when you sneeze. Few things were more awe inspiring at the time than this tale – few things other than Karen Bates’s B cup breasts – and jaws holding Jolly Ranchers dropped as I spoke. At least two of the most neurotic girls at the table touched their noses, clearly fearing imminent death, and I was so consumed by the impact of my oration that I didn’t see one girl leave the table. But I heard her, laughing from the direction of the milk bin.
“Kristen!” she guffawed, likely wearing some cruel shade of purple, “That isn’t true!”
She had consulted the milk ladies, universally known as bastions of medical knowledge, and both she and the two plump women were approaching our table.
“Let’s clear this up right now,” one of the middle-aged women said. “Your facts aren’t correct. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re wrong.”
I’m quite sure nothing drastic occurred in reality, but I vividly remember thinking the world had come to an end, and upon arriving home I’d have to research alternative educational options. In South America. Ears and cheeks flushed with shame. I thought to fight it, to pursue my case, but I had no journals to cite and my Encyclopedia Britannica was miles away. The 10-year-old prosecutor wore pride while the neurotics looked at once relieved and afflicted by sympathy embarrassment. I skulked off to class and didn’t bring it up again, unless you consider the 80 times I’ve discussed it in the 25 years since.
But I’m 100 percent sure I’m right about the exit. And I now have a care package of maps and sticky red arrows to assemble.
21 Comments
I just sneezed and realized someone borrowed my defibrilator and didn’t return it. Damn.
bwahahahaha!
I think I know which one you’re talking about — the exit immediately after you cross the bridge. It’s a tough exit to see with all of the signage above and the immediate exits about to come both on the right and left. And, of course, the Pentagon in the foreground. So I can understand him thinking that he took the correct exit.
But yes. You were absolutely right.
I really love how you write! I seriously think you need to write a book!!!
And… dork that I am, I just looked it up on Google Street view. There’s an exit. Albeit poorly marked. Without an exit sign. But it’s unmistakeably an exit.
I love how you write, too, and I don’t think you’re alone in wanting/loving being right.
I will say in your friends defense that I can’t get around DC even with the help of GPS. Its absolutely crazy.
My father’s entire family suffers from a steel trap memory and an inability to admit they’re wrong. It makes it very trying to deal with them, since they won’t understand that the only person in the world who’s always right is me, me, me, me, me.
What is it with these people that can’t tell that when you have information to share, it’s probably correct information because otherwise you wouldn’t be sharing it? Idiots!!!
I have the Must-Show-I’m-Right disease. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we get along–when we’re together, we’re exponentially right!
Seriously, though, it’s something I’m working on. It’s hard. I have to remind myself that refraining from pointing out someone else’s error is not the same thing as showing that I don’t have the need to be right. I’d go to a support group, but then I’d have to listen to all those other people being wrong.
that first paragraph had me laughing out loud! and no, there really isn’t any other way to go about being right than to do what you described here.
Every now and then you write something that makes me pump my fist in the air with glee and scream, “Me, too!”.
Of course you were right about the exit. I once won $300 on a bet concerning the location of a Wawa. I am NEVER wrong when I am right!
:-)
I absolutely love your style of writing. I stumbled upon your blog and definitely plan on visiting more often! I enjoyed this story and can honestly say that I share your need of being right!
::high five::
i love being right!
So just to be clear… When you say “Take the first GW Parkway exit off the bridge, not the one to the airport,” and the first exit is labeled “Reagan National Airport” (thank you, Google Streetviews) – your directions remain correct?
If, as might be the case, said exit ramp isn’t labeled at all, wouldn’t the more pertinent qualifier be “It’s not labeled in any fashion” rather than “Not the one to the airport”?
I’m just curious, because I, too, enjoy being right, and need the pointers. :)
And now, back to Classmates.com and good ole Karen Bates…
You and I, we are the same. As are my brother and I. We can NEVER be wrong. So we have a lot of conversations where there is yelling. I usually give in and tell him he’s stupid because I’m really 5.
I would totally get a map together with arrows and such to send too. :-)
I have a document saved on my computer with a very precise map to my home, with arrows, exclamation points and a small section of side notes for the frequently errant traveler. Because the story you just told, its my story! And I like being right. Or maybe I just hate people thinking I’m wrong. Is there a difference?
I have lived on the Maryland side of DC all my life and I still get lost every time I cross over into Virginia.
HILARIOUS! I am so with you. I will take being wrong in much better stride than I will ever take being right and others not KNOWING. (Not that I am ever wrong, mind you.)
You belong in D.C. You’re a national treasure. : )