Words for My Enjoyment

I Could Be Your Considerate Intervention Giver

May 4th, 2006

Don’t you think there’s too many of these tough-love intervention givers?

I mean who do they think they are? They bust into your life with a crowd of people and then lock the door behind them and they bear their teeth while they growl such phrases at you like “you’re not going anywhere, buddy” and “it’s time you fact facts, fellah” and “you sit there and listen of we’re going to stab you with this huge shish-kabob spear” without even first guaging the situation before them or how you’re feeling on that particular day.

See, I could be your considerate intervention giver and it would make people so much more relaxed.

First of all, the key to being a considerate intervention giver is listening. That’s where most intervention givers totally get off on the wrong foot. They barge into your apartment or your house or that alley where you’re living in a cardboard box where you’re using dirty needles to inject heroin into your body and they think they have to play the tough love card. Well you know what?

Tough love doesn’t work.

All tough love does is make the person getting the tough love think to themselves, “shoot, I’m really not a fan of this tough love thing and now I don’t love the person anymore who is giving me the tough love and so really, it’s not tough love at all but it’s more like unwanted tough love and that’s illegal and I could get a restraining order against this person if they’re attempting to love me when I don’t want them to love me which is exactly what I’m going to do as soon as I can…”

All tough love does is piss off the person getting the tough love and let me tell you that it is the first mistake most intervention givers make. Some of the real amateurs even try to incorporate this overrused phrase into the things they say to the interventionee after the door has slammed behind them. Stuff like:

• “It’s time someone gave you some of that tough love stuff.”
• “I love you, man. Toughly. Toughly and seriously.”
• “Love isn’t always considerate. Or kind. But it’s tough. Grrrr!”
• “Do you think I’m tough? Here, feel my bicep.”

The key to having an intervention go smoothly is being open to the suggestions and thoughts of the person being blindsided by the intervention. For example, if I’m your considerate intervention giver and I walk in with a bunch of your close family and friends while you’re there in your hell-hole of an apartment, laying on the couch with a million empty bottles of vodka around you and I tell you we’re there for your intervention and you look up and say something like “can we do this another time, perhaps?” then what do you think I am going to do?

We break out our PDAs and we find a better time.

Because if you’re not feeling “up to the intervention” you’re not going to listen and you’re not going to be open to hearing our suggestions for how you can shape up and you’re definitely going to be thinking the entire time I’m talking to you about what’s on TV (you sold your TiVo for a bottle of Petron, by the way) and so all you’re going to hear coming out of my mouth is the Wah Wah Wah that the teacher on the Peanuts cartoons sounds like.

Fortunately, most people faced with an intervention don’t think to ask for a rescheduled intervention time so it’s not something you’ve really got to worry about.

Instead, however — I often find that as a considerate intervention giver, most people faced with the intervention usually do one thing right away when they realize what’s going on around them. They throw up. Usually right on the intervention giver. It’s more like a nervous-stomach kind of thing than a malicious act, but most everyday intervention givers usually get all flustered and run off into the bathroom to clean off their shirt and while that’s happening all the other people in the living room go into the kitchen to find something to eat and before long the entire intervention vibe is gone and you might as well break out those PDAs because you’re going to have to reschedule this for another time when you can get that surprise vibe back.

But as a considerate intervention giver, I welcome your bile. Seriously. It’s just bile! What do you think I’ve got in my own stomach? What do you think all the other people with me have in their lower intestines? BILE! So big deal, your bile has seen the light of day and my awesome silk dress shirt. As a considerate intervention giver I will look at you, your messy mouth, my ruined shirt, my back-up intervention givers and I will smile.

And you will be thinking to yourself something like, “wow, this intervention giver didn’t even get annoyed or pissed off, he was just really considerate and understanding about the fact that he’s got bile all over his shirt.”

And voila! I’m suddenly on your good side.

When you throw up on me, I smile. When you try to attack me with your old needles, I give you a little bit of the wax on wax off business and we can move on to more important things. When you ask for a glass of water, I’ll get you a bottle of Dasani. When you wonder if you can go to the bathroom first, I’ll hand you a plastic bottle. When you cry, I’ll comfort. When you scream, so will I. When you wonder what’s the use with living life, I will be there to tell you point blank that the use of living life is to live a life so lived that when you live and look back and realize that the living that you’ve lived in your entire life happens to actually be a life worth living that all will become clear and sort of depressing because isn’t a shame most people in life don’t know that?

I’d probably offer you a neck pillow at some point in the intervention as well.

So, welcome those wannabe sub-bar intervention givers into your life. Open your door to mediocrity. But know one thing and know one thing only:

I could be your considerate intervention giver, and that’s not the tough love talkin’.

Posted under I Could Be, Interventions. |