Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude...it's a lovely word, isn't it?

I don't often get the chance to indulge in it. More often, I'm on the receiving end. But I'm relishing in it right now.

Perhaps I'm a horrible person. Or perhaps some people just have it coming because their sense of hubris is astounding.

A few days ago, my mother called to tell me that Cousin Jesus's wife (who left him right after she got pregnant, then came back right before she had the baby in order to net a bunch of expensive shower gifts from my kinfolks, had the baby in early August, and stayed with him for a couple of months) called him to tell him that she is having him served with divorce papers.

Divorce. Papers.

Excuse me for a moment.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

*Ahem*

Ok.

I'm good now.

You see, the thing about Cousin Jesus--and the very reason that I've come to call him that--is that my whole family thinks he walks on water. He can do NO wrong, regardless of the fact that he's a drunk, a manipulator, a liar, a user, and, worst of all in my eyes, a goddamn hypocrite with an entitlement complex. He genuinely believes that the world owes him something just by virtue of him living in it. And, truth be told, I guess it's no wonder that he believes it because he's always had anything he's ever wanted just handed to him, and it's not the least bit appreciated.

It doesn't matter how many times he gets drunk and wrecks his truck; somebody's always there to hand him money to get a new one. It doesn't matter how many times he gets arrested; somebody's always there to bail him out to make sure he doesn't actually get booked. It doesn't matter how many financial jams he gets himself into; somebody's always there to funnel him money to keep him from getting his phone turned off or his truck repossessed or God knows what else.

I, on the other hand, the non-alcoholic, non-hypocritical, non-white-trash, college-educated member of the family, can do no right in the eyes of the rest of my kinfolks. I've never been arrested, never defaulted on a loan, never wrecked a vehicle because I was drunk, and certainly never expected the world to GIVE me a goddamn thing. Oh, and I didn't live in my mama's house until I got married at 30 years old and then promptly move into a trailer in her backyard, either. But, still, somehow, Cousin Jesus heals the sick and raises the dead while I am a non-entity, even to my own mother (or at least up until very, very recently--as in the last few months). It's pretty disgusting, actually.

Anyway, now, while I think that Cousin Jesus had no business getting married in the first place to someone as childish and immature as he is--which I said to my mother before the wedding in 2010--and he damn sure had no business fucking reproducing (God help us), I have to say that she's really no better than he is. Why? Well, like I said, she's childish and immature, and, really, nobody in her right mind would have the bastard to start with, so there's gotta be something wrong with her, too.

But, yes, I am taking an enormous amount of pleasure in this because he's finally found something that he can't either talk his way out of or convince someone else to buy his way out of. Watching a narcissist fall is one of the great pleasures of life, in my opinion.

Sometimes, it's nice knowing that people can't get away with being self-righteous, manipulative, overly-entitled dickheads their whole lives. Watching it come back and bite them in the ass is worth all the bullshit you have to put up with to get to that point. And I do believe that it almost always *does* come back to them one day, even if they believe that they're invincible.

I've fallen far enough. Time to watch somebody else do it for awhile.