Our Limitless Capacity To Be Abused

What is the deal with Hell's Kitchen? Chef is such an asshole. This is part of the reason I am generally not a fan of the reality show. Except Top Model. And, okay, I did like the haircutting show with Jacklyn Smith. But she was incredibly gentle as she gave them the boot: "I'm sorry. Your style is not a cut above." And she did seem truly sorry.

Like the Hell's Kitchen cooks that grovel and scrape before Chef, do people generally line up to be abused so readily in real life? This brings to mind my downstairs neighbor. I haven't blogged about him yet, but my four or so loyal readers have probably heard me talk about my downstairs neighbor, Cracky McCracken. Cracky seems to suffer from an explosive rage disorder. Or possibly some kind of drug-induced mania since he could easily be a meth addict. Maybe a dealer, too, as he has a brand new BMW yet seems not to have a conventional job of any kind. Since moving in some two or so years ago, I have been lucky enough to overhear more conversations than I can count that tend to go like this:

Cracky McCracken: (muffled yelling) ... fuck you! No, fuck you! (slight pause) Fuck you, you fuck! I said fuck you! (beat) Bitch! You fucking fuck! Puta! (repeat ad nauseam)

The most amazing thing to me is not that Cracky can dish this out--he's got the lung power, stamina and lack of vocabulary needed for such a tirade. No, what's amazing to me is that anyone would stay on the phone to hear him out. I can only conclude that Cracky's "friend" must also be on drugs, opiates of some kind, that render him very slow to respond. Or some kind of blunting drug that permits him to believe that a sentence not containing a permutation of "fuck" must be just around the corner.

A few months ago I noticed I hadn't heard Cracky in a while and concluded that he must have gone to rehab or finally been appropriately medicated for his volatile mood disorder. How naive you are, Professional Critic! One warm dry night, I didn't turn on the dehumidifier and my optimism was rewarded with a 2am fuckfest--not the kind I wanted to experience. Turns out the dehumidifier was drowning Cracky out. So much for "whisper quiet" operation. It's more like curling up with a Cessna engine, but far better than hearing Cracky rage.