OFFICIALLY, I'd advocate the turning of other cheeks.
Unofficially, I say get revenge. Get revenge good.
No one ever really forgives small slights: they store up, burning and choking and twisting, until you explode or become a bitter, wizened old cynic.
Looks like I'm not alone. An Australian startup company offering to ship glitter to a person's enemies became overwhelmed in the first 24 hours of its launch.
Entrepreneur Mathew Carpenter sold out of all seven "different, terrible" colours of glitter, crashing ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com and bringing the site down for several hours. "People seem to have a lot of enemies," he said. I'd imagine he's quite right.
For $10 you can send your nemesis a packet of "the herpes of the craft world" with a note explaining what they did wrong.
It's the note I feel is the flaw in this scheme. (Let us gloss - literally - over the small worry that sending vindictive, anonymous post is possibly a wee bit sinister and concentrate more on the notion of spite as fun.) Only admit who you are if you're looking to reconcile. And if you're looking to reconcile then don't ship the glitter.
Certainly, the customer reviews are glowing: "I bought this for my husband, he opened the mail before work and got it everywhere. He had to change, was late for work and might be getting fired, LOL!"
Mathew, however, set up the business prompted by the desire to wreak revenge on people who sent him glitter-filled Christmas and birthday cards. "I wanted the rest of the world to feel my pain," he said.
He, then, has taken his desire for retribution and turned it into a money making way of helping other people take control of their altercations. It's win-win - unless you're the recipient of a pack of multi-faceted revenge sprinkles.
Tactical frivolity is no new thing. Protest groups have used the revolutionary spaghetti catapult and radical cheerleaders. Who can forget the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army at the G8 summit of 2005?
Mr Carpenter's plan is relatively small fry given the glitter bombing that takes place in the US. Often it's right-wing political candidates who are showered in the stuff as a form of non-violent protest. Harmless fun, I'd call it, although some bombers have been threatened with assault and battery charges. It's painful if it goes in your eyes, glitter. Ditto up the nose.
Still, if someone's done something to enrage you inaction is not the way forward.
You can love your enemy, if you're so inclined, but I'd definitely recommend showering them in glitter.
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