Spite is Expensive

Last Thursday, I went to the pub after Back to School Night. It was a long day, and I was a bit wound up (although that is no excuse for my behavior).

We shot some darts and then Paul put five dollars into the digital jukebox. I looked over his shoulder at his selection and noticed he was about to play something awful-- The Doobie Brothers or The Eagles or such-- and so I boxed him out, usurped his credits, and told him that I would be handling the music for the evening.

Because everyone loves Dave's eclectically hip taste, right?

I played "Since You're Gone" by The Cars-- not because Ric Ocasek died . . . I hadn't heard the news-- but simply because they were advertised prominently. I played some Ween and some Pavement, some New Order and a funk instrumental by The Meters. I tried to find some Wu Tang, but the jukebox didn't have it, so I settled on A Tribe Called Quest.

The jukebox played my first selection: "Since You're Gone." Then, oddly, it played an old awful Irish country song entitled "Whiskey in a Jar." And then "Eminence Front,"  a song I like but had not selected. A song Connell had played last week.

Weird. 

And then some other songs that I don't recall, but songs I had definitely not selected. And I saw Paul, out of the corner of my eye, his fist raised in glory. Rejoicing. And I knew what had happened.

Musical vengeance.

My so-called friends, fed up with my condescension and musical elitism, had exacted their revenge. While I was pondering over my eclectically hip selections, they had fired up the jukebox app on their phones, paid for a bunch of credits-- enough credits to push my songs to the end of the line-- and played a bunch of shitty songs. Songs designed to piss me off. 

It cost Connell eight dollars to play "Eminence Front" and a few others. He said it was well worth it.

It cost Paul more than that (not that he cared).

Tom realized what was going on and asked Paul how much he had spent on the original credits.

Paul said, "Five bucks."

"And how much did it cost to disrupt those songs?"

"Eight bucks."

"Huh," Tom said, "Spite is expensive." 

But-- according to my so-called friends-- spite is well worth the money. I've certainly learned my lesson. I've got to tone down the musical snobbery, and just sort of lurk about and insert songs I here and there. I can't bully someone out of the way and steal all their selections. That's uncivilized ( even though in the end, Paul conceded that I did play some good music).