Schedule a Colostomy and Save a Friend!

**This goes out to them perpetually pissed off sort of people whose disposition, come hell or high water, are always in direct proportion to the kind of things they have stuck up their ass. I'm sure you know somebody like him.

There's this person I've known for close to five years now, and, thankfully, we're not friends. I see him almost every day, and what little pleasantries we've exchanged are limited to a word count of five. I never talk to him if I can help it on account of he's almost always frowning, and he could be, for all I know, biologically engineered to breathe fire. That smirk on his face works as good as a fingerprint -- it's the best identification he's got. I'm not stretching the truth when I tell you that I rarely see him smile. It's as if his face repels cheer and sunshine and all that creamy goodness, and it appears like he doesn't mind being a wet blanket towards everybody else's high spirits.

This dish rag, because he's got the personality of one, is pushing 40 now. Or at least he looks like it with the way he's always frowning. So there's just absolutely no point in teaching old sour dogs new cheerful tricks. Like smiling and stuff.

I'm not going to size him up, at least not any more, or decipher his corrosive psychological code because there's no real objective behind such a frustrating undertaking. Let's leave that to expensive shrinks who are getting paid for their intestinal fortitude. Or to them idle self-serving dipshits who think they're smart enough to unravel everybody else's behavioral patterns and then post their observations as Facebook shout outs. I mentioned Mr. Anthrope here (as opposed to Ms. Anthrope, which sounds like Misanthrope, which means "world hater" -- get it?) because you probably know somebody, maybe a far removed family member who lives in the same house, or an ex-friend who got kicked off the Emo-bandwagon because he was taking things a tad too seriously, anybody with a severely toxic disposition. And you don't know what to do with them. At least anything humane.

And so allow me to hazard several suggestions.

1. Imagine a self-restraining order in your head, like a uranium-green neon Post It that says "Keep the Fuck Away!" when you're within ten feet of said Toxic Person. And because it will be in your head, make sure it's very accessible for future recall. Maybe tuck that next to that mental file cabinet that's labelled "Favorite Masturbatory Fantasies," and leave that as it is. Do this if you got luck and you;re not in speaking terms with said Toxic Person. Or at least you used to be.

2. Stop talking to him. Delete him from your Facebook network. Remove his number from your cellphone, so that you reply with a "Who you?" the next time he sends you a message. Just cut him off completely, and pray well that he gets the hint.

3. Be as equally cheerful as he is toxic and become the more irritating of the two of you. Show all your teeth when you smile at him (which will be every ten to twenty minutes), always talk in rising pitches, high five until it's an involuntary reflex, and small talk like you breathe unnecessary banter. Become so thoroughly irritating to him that he cuts you off first, and then congratulate yourself.

4. Drug his coffee with 3,000 mg of the strongest over the counter laxative. Or whatever dosage that's potent enough to make him shit a five pound brick. Studies show that grumpy people more or less have something stuck up their ass, and I'm hoping that this exercise in conditioning bowel movement works like a charm. If it doesn't, and he's still no more cheerful after that nuclear shit, then tell yourself that at least you tried. And find wisdom in these two words - Shit happens.

5. Find yourself a good proctologist and schedule a colostomy. Maybe, just maybe, two ass holes will do him good.