One of my favorite (and under-appreciated) expressions is when we say someone behaves like “a horse’s ass.” Not very popular, it is thought to date back to the mid- nineteenth century. I have used it a few times and been surprised at how few people recognized it. To me, it’s the absolute best way to describe when someone says or does something spectacularly stupid. It surfaced early in the current presidential campaign a few times. And you are about to read of another fine example.
Yesterday I brought some books home from the library to relax with over the weekend. A mystery, a cookbook and a memoir. At lunch I opened the cookbook to gain inspiration for dinner (Sriracha-honey-lime glazed chicken, which I highly recommend.) Then I picked up the memoir for a quick peek before getting back to work. It started out with the author telling her woeful tale from the perspective of a mid-sixties editor who had been laid off after twenty years at the same place. I do wince when I hear about we mid-century moderns being replaced with twenty-three year-old interns working for free. But my sympathy evaporated when I read the next paragraph.
She is despondent, miserable, rootless. She will miss her co-workers terribly. One of the very first things she mentions is how worried she is about how she will pay the bills. Her entire identity has revolved around her profession and she can not imagine herself in any other way. She can’t eat. Sleep. Her family tiptoes around, unable to help. Then one day, with crystal clarity, she awakens with the knowledge of what she has to do. She will have to travel. She will have to travel six hours north, to their country house, to regroup. To a 4500 square foot custom-built solar-heated home on 26 acres, LEED compliant.
“Give me a break!” I yelled at page 13 of the preface. “You are worried about how to pay the bills so you’re going to go to your COUNTRY HOUSE to think about it?” How did these words come to coexist? I don’t know about you, but to my ear this is not exactly poetry in motion. If you somehow can’t hear how colossally stupid you sound, that’s what editors are for. Objective analysis is a very helpful way of keeping a writer (or anyone) from looking like a…you-know-what. Why didn’t someone – anyone – just read that paragraph out loud a few times, and actually listen to how profoundly stupid those words all sound together?
Maybe at press time her editor was at his country house as well?