Gary Busey once said enemies are just friends in reverse...

I ran into Ninja Vicki over at the book store the other day. She was sneaking around, looking for the self-help book section, but couldn’t find it and couldn’t bring herself to ask a store clerk to show her. So she jumped down from the top of the young adult section bookcase and tackled me to ask me where it was.

“How should I know where the self-help section is?” I say.

“Because you have the most problems,” says Ninja Vicki. “I mean, your problems may not be as major as other people’s, like Fur Elise or Tag Larkin. But you’ve got a lot of minor problems that add up into a giant crushing pile of crazy.”

“Quantity over quality,” I say. “But actually I don’t need any self-help books. I’ve found something else to help me through my horrid meaningless life.”

One sentence: “Failure is a success that hasn’t occurred yet.”

Ninja Vicki blinks very quickly for a full minute

“That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense,” Ninja Vicki finally says. “How did you come up with such a stupid phrase.”

“I got it from Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend,” I say “She pretty much said that on CNN in response to the assertion that not catching Osama bin Laden yet is a failure. It’s stirring.”

“It’s stupid,” says Ninja Vicki. “Possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I hang out a lot with Mikka.”

“Exactly my point,” I say. “This woman who has an important government job went on television and with a straight face and all earnestness said one of the dumbest things of this young century.”

“And this helps you how?” says Ninja Vicki.

“That no matter what I do, I will never say or do anything dumber than ‘Failure is a success that hasn’t occurred yet,’” I say. “Do you know what a load off my mind that is?”

“Wow, you’re right,” Ninja Vicki says. “I can call my mom up and tell her that my isolated dateless single life is just a marriage that hasn’t occurred yet. And when she has an aneurysm trying to figure out what I just said, I can hang up the phone and escape.”

Behold the therapeutic power of sociopathic bullshit. This will require more attention…