Misery By Proxy
Obviously, since the Covid-19 pandemic I haven’t been anywhere much — I try to avoid the shops at the best of times …but I’m really not keen to die horribly for the sake of a loaf of bread … and people around here seem to be spectacularly dimwitted, in the shops with no masks on (they don’t care if they kill people, so long as they aren’t made aware of it, if even then), so I’ve been even less inclined than usual to set foot outside unnecessarily.
But … what with one thing and another (DJing, visiting friends, <ahem> servicing clients, etc.) … before all this, I was out and about alot.
And one of the things I spent a lot of time doing was scouring second-hand shops, charity-shops, exchanges, pawn-brokers … anywhere and everywhere … for DVDs/Blu-Rays and videogames.
Being able to pick up films/movies for 10p, 50p, £1, £2.50 (£5 if I really, really wanted to add it to my collection ¹) didn’t mean I picked up just anything — I’ve moved around often enough in my life to know that even being extremely choosy still means there’s a lot to pack, carry and unpack each time, so I don’t want to add to that burden unnecessarily. But it did mean I added things to my collection that, previously, I’d’ve thought harder about and, more than likely, dismissed as ‘would be nice, but’ — much as I liked Cabaret, I’ve seen it and, if people come to visit and there’s something they haven’t seen that they really should then they’ll have no trouble tracking it down, whereas all five series of Misfits (Aura) is a different matter (Aura).
I never bothered to spend 10p on Zoolander though.
I was aware of its existence, but I’d never seen it, had no idea what it was about and, no matter how many times I read the blurb on the back, each time I walked into somewhere and saw it, just couldn’t remember why I’d opted not to bother before — seriously, from one day to literally the next, I’d’ve forgotten … that’s how unimpressed I was by whatever it was I’d read on the back of the case … how unmoved I was to watch it for 10p.
Eventually someone I had hitherto considered a friend ³ persuaded me to pick it up whilst we were on a charity-crawl ⁴ (it was only 10p after all) on the basis that I really owed it to myself to watch it in order to appreciate
- what it was about — it is, seemingly, a bit of a cultural thing
- how terrible it is
Well, that’s 90 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
I can’t say I’m not traumatised but the PTSD is relatively mild and, with therapy, I think I’ll cope in time.
Ah, yes … therapy.
The thing is that everywhere I go, there are multiple copies of it. This isn’t an attentional thing … not a case of my being sensitised and my awareness of it heightened — I was aware that there’d be some five-to-ten copies of it in every shop I went into before I saw it (I just had no idea what it was about, nor any desire to).
But, I am traumatised now and the PTSD, however mild, is real.
So, I need to … I don’t know … desensitise myself to it somehow … get over it.
A, if not the, core aspect of aversion therapy … for those with phobias of things like snakes or spiders, for example … is to get people to confront their fear by handling the thing that distresses them … get them to pick up spiders and snakes.
So, I could try buying 10p copies of Zoolander, for instance.
The problem there though is that there’s a danger of getting OCD about it and ending up with copies of it stacked floor to ceiling … room after room full of Zoolander … as my PTSD turns a therapeutic process intended to heal into a destructive one that ends with a cure worse than the ailment.
So, what I might try doing is combining the desensitising process with a sort of twist on Primal Scream therapy: I’ll buy copies of it and the leave them on public transport, in taxis/ubers, on benches in parks (or other public spaces), you get the idea.
That way, I can sublimate the PTSD into a form of revenge at a remote … inflicting the cause of my trauma upon others by virtue of their finding and watching the copies I leave in my wake … transferring my pain to (albeit involuntary) faith-healers who take it for their own, relieving me (if only until the next time) of my suffering.
Sort of like the bastard offspring of an unholy union of Typhoid Mary and Johhny Ringo
I could make it a hobby: inflicting Zoolander on the World in revenge for its ever having been made. Misery loves company after all, right? It’s just that this way, I don’t need to spend any time in your miserable company, so it’s a win … well, not exactly win:win, because you lose, but you get my drift — as far as I am concerned, at least, it’s a win.
Yeah … if, and when, this pandemic ever ends … and it’s safe to go out again … and there are any charity shops, pawnbrokers, exchanges, etc. still in business ⁵ … I might give that a go.
It might work, it might not … but at least I’ll feel like you all understand me ⁷.
If he hasn’t already, Stephen M. Tomic should definitely watch it — he’s adopted and nobody loves him anyway, so it’s only appropriate really (and it’s not like his life could be any more hollow or his existence any more futile, so no harm no foul, right?).
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¹ Like The complete X Files (all eleven seasons plus the two films) remastered on Blu-Ray, for instance ².
² It really was past time I got around to watching more than seasons 2 and 5 at long last.
³ It’s okay, I forgave them and we’re still friends.
⁴ Like a pub-crawl, only with fewer pubs (i.e. none) and more charity shops.
⁵ And I suppose one side-effect might be that, due to all the extra deaths in the UK arising from our government’s appalling mismanagement of the crisis ⁶, there will probably be a lot of extra second-hand items for sale afterwards, what with house clearances and whathaveyou … so, there might well be.
⁶ Whether or not it would’ve been one anyway … they’ve certainly managed to make it into one.
⁷ Apart from those of you who, for some unfathomable reason, actually like it ⁸.
⁸ You’ll never understand me — you have no souls and are incapable of empathy as a result.
