Groaning loudly and angrily closing her laptop in disgust, local phlebotomist Audrey Ellis, 26, experienced a rush of rising anger yesterday afternoon after reading one of her douchebag brother-in-law’s latest political rants on Facebook.
“I know he writes these ridiculous things just to get attention,” Ellis told reporters.
“But the sad thing is, I think he really deep down believes all of this crap too. And so do a lot of other idiots out there. I should really get back online and explain to him, for the tenth freaking time, why he’s wrong, using concise, evidence-based arguments backed by reputable sources.”
In addition to this, Ellis briefly considered firing off a pointed letter to the editor of her local newspaper.
After drinking a tall, cool glass of tap water and gazing out the kitchen window at the Japanese maples growing in the neighbor’s yard, Ellis decided to walk around her neighborhood to calm down and compose her thoughts.
Upon returning home 20 minutes later, invigorated and refreshed from direct exposure to sunlight and lungfuls of crisp autumn air, she felt no need to report the offensive postings as hate speech or urge her congressman to pass more laws about regulating inflammatory content in public spaces.
“I feel so much better now,” Ellis said. “I can’t even remember what that idiot Dennis was blathering about earlier. Who cares?”
She went on to describe a year’s worth of futile but well-meaning attempts to correct her obnoxious brother-in-law’s flagrant leaps in logic and use of misinformation, all of which failed to persuade him to reconsider his viewpoints.
“Some people spend hours, days, even years getting into furious, keyboard-pounding arguments online, and what’s the point of it all? There’s always going to be people out there in the world who disagree with you,” Ellis added. “My negative emotional reactions to external stimuli aren’t necessarily de facto evidence of anyone else’s wrongdoing. That being said, my brother-in-law is a moron and I hope a cement truck runs over his foot.”