Back when I was 17 and in high school, the school's bald, long-bearded, lumpy-headed, Klingon janitor busted me for smoking a cigarette in the men's room (or it may have been a joint) and took me to the office for my penalty. Normally I wouldn't mind or take it personally, because that's this job. But this Klingon-janitor was so rude, nasty, bullying, bragging about catching me the whole time - totally unprofessional for a school employee - that I decided I was going to get revenge on him.
For the next couple of days I watched the janitor-Klingon's regular schedule of cleaning the public bathrooms. So during lunch hour, I drove my cheap, rustbucket car to a KFC a few miles away and engorged myself on a full thigh meal. After which I then engorged myself on a bottle of Ipecac emetic syrup, drove back to school, and there the fun truly began! I went to the bathroom I knew the janitor-Klingon was going to clean and - much like a broken fire hydrant - I managed to spew partially-digested KFC vomit over every surface of the bathroom. My digestive system literally painted the men's room janitor-Klingon was going to clean. And since I had a "study hall" after lunch, I didn't have any particular class to go to. So I quietly hung around the vicinity of that bathroom and I watched the janitor-Klingon go in there with his oh-so-cute little cart of cleaning supplies and he was in that bathroom cleaning up my puke baptism for a long, long, long, long time.
I was so satisfied watching it, that's where I first understood the German term "schadenfreude." Even while I was still trying to control my painful waves of dry heaves and hiccups from the Ipecac syrup, it still felt incredibly enjoyable to watch. It's rare I can feel pleasure in the grips of major nausea, but I managed it that time. I remember a big grin spreading across my face in spite of my stomach rocking and rolling.
For the next couple of days I watched the janitor-Klingon's regular schedule of cleaning the public bathrooms. So during lunch hour, I drove my cheap, rustbucket car to a KFC a few miles away and engorged myself on a full thigh meal. After which I then engorged myself on a bottle of Ipecac emetic syrup, drove back to school, and there the fun truly began! I went to the bathroom I knew the janitor-Klingon was going to clean and - much like a broken fire hydrant - I managed to spew partially-digested KFC vomit over every surface of the bathroom. My digestive system literally painted the men's room janitor-Klingon was going to clean. And since I had a "study hall" after lunch, I didn't have any particular class to go to. So I quietly hung around the vicinity of that bathroom and I watched the janitor-Klingon go in there with his oh-so-cute little cart of cleaning supplies and he was in that bathroom cleaning up my puke baptism for a long, long, long, long time.
I was so satisfied watching it, that's where I first understood the German term "schadenfreude." Even while I was still trying to control my painful waves of dry heaves and hiccups from the Ipecac syrup, it still felt incredibly enjoyable to watch. It's rare I can feel pleasure in the grips of major nausea, but I managed it that time. I remember a big grin spreading across my face in spite of my stomach rocking and rolling.
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