The Woodshed

You know, I was looking for something to write about today, and well, last night provided me plenty.  I have now become thoroughly convinced that some people just need to be taken out behind the woodshed and be taught proper manners.  More succinctly, some people need to just have the common sense knocked BACK into their heads.  If it takes a metaphorical two by four to their backside, then so be it.

I am going to need y'all's help today, in a really major way.  I need someone to explain to me why people just can't be grateful for what they have; even more than that, why people just get an incurable case of the worms and can by no stretch of the imagination be happy for other people when something good happens to their friends or acquaintances.

Ok, let's define some terms.  According to my Daddy's Dictionary:

Worms - noun - something that bothers someone.

Dummy - adjective - nickname for someone who does something silly, stupid or just plain idiotic.

Eat-up - verb - someone that is consumed with something.

Dumbass - adjective - I think the word is well known enough for you to figure it out.

Now, let's use them in a sentence...

Some dummy last night got eat-up with the worms when something good happened to me.  Daddy always says, "Some people got the worms, there is always something eating them."  Now, while this may prove to be a pretty disgusting visual to most folks, I have to say, Daddy's right.  There are just some people, no matter what, just have to down on other people when they don't get what they want, or when something good happens to someone other than themselves.  There's a couple of other words for folks like that, such as spoiled, jealous, and just plain stupid.

Why in heck would anyone want to live their life denying other people good things just because someone got something they wanted before they did?  I really want to know the answer to this!  Now Daddy would just say, "That's a person that is just eat-up with the dumbass."  Yes, I know, Daddy's colorful, but in this case, I figure he's dead on to rights.

Now I'll be the first to admit I've had my moments of having the worms...heck yeah, everyone has them at one point or another.  I've been ticked off when I've felt left behind, abandoned or the rest of the list of things that annoy me.  But, I don't let them carry on for too long.  Life's too short.  I discuss what's worming me up, then I get over it, it's pretty easy that way.

But last night, I'm in the raid in World of Warcraft and finally, the last piece of the puzzle I need for my damage set finally drops.  Woot!  I was tickled pink.  After all, Rel is my main, I've worked really hard on her and more to the point, she's been shoulder to shoulder bleeding with a lot of folks, on a very consistent basis, for quite a while now.  It's not like my sweet little druid doesn't carry her weight, as a matter of fact, she does two jobs.  She crafts for more than half the folks she's around every day.  I've wiped tears and noses, even a few butts.  I've listened while people confide and complain to me.  Hell, I'm Mama Rel!  And as I once told my sweet Guild Master who I just adore to death, "Everyone, at one time or another, comes to see Mama Rel."

Put succinctly, I've put in lots of time and effort to be who I am in my guild.  I'm not even being prideful saying it, it's just what I do and more to the point, it's how I contribute to the overall good of the other folks I play with.  Ok, let's just shorten it up and say one simple phrase that not one single person can argue with...I'm a team player.  I take care of people.  I don't think of myself first, I think of the big picture and how my little druid fits into it all.  I've passed on more gear and other things I'd love to have just for the good of the team.  I've given out more crafting materials (which are usually pretty pricey in-game), spent more time helping other people than I do myself.  Now I'm sorry, but I wish there were even more people out there like me and my closest guild pals.   Most folks in WoW I wouldn't term as overly generous. However, I'd be a horrible person if I didn't mention that there are a few like me out there, but we're rare, especially in a raid situation where everyone is clawing for the latest gear, the best upgrades and whathaveyou.  The competition, at times, gets pretty thick.

Now, another set of terminology we need to define is:

Main:  That's the character you spend the majority of your time on.  It's also likely to be the one who's best geared, has the most achievements, etc.  More than likely, it's your first choice to take into a raid situation.

Alt:  An abbreviation for the word "Alternate".  It's another one of your toons that you play a bit, not quite as much as your main, who may be geared or whathaveyou, but it's not really a main toon you take as a first choice.  Alts come in when you get saved to a particular instance and want to take a different toon along OR when the raid makeup is not optimal and you have a toon that can make a difference as far as raid balance or some other attribute.

Mains always take precedence over alts.  It's the way it always has been.

Then there are two other phrases:

Main spec - what you spend most of your time doing

Off spec - what you don't spend a majority of time doing, but you can fill the role if needs be.

Now in my guild, we have mains and we have alts.  Rel is my main, and she's been that way for three years now.  She was my first girl to 80, and with her wonderful versatility and the fact that she and I fit like hand in glove, she's always first choice to go somewhere, even if I do have a hunter that is eligible.  Most of my friends enjoy the fact that Rel is there.  She can heal, she can do damage and if something goes terribly wrong, I've been known to flip to my tanking mode and pick up a boss to save the day.  Yeah, she's a Swiss Army Knife and I do love her dearly.  But, being as that I do both jobs (damage and healing) in equal proportion, my guild master and raid leader term me as a person with two main specs.  If I need gear for either set, I can roll on it any time I'd like.  For me, unlike so many others, I don't have an off spec and it's something that most folks just don't understand.  (If you were a druid, you'd know that it's easily possible to be two main specs because our class is so very versatile.)  If I would have an off spec, it would be a tanking set, but I'll more than likely never be called on to do that job in a raid setting, so tank gear doesn't apply to me.

Now, with being a Swiss Army Knife (and in my guild we are rare) and showing up almost every raid night like clockwork, always prepared and ready to go when it's time, I enjoy a pretty posh seat in the raid.  Well, it's not really posh, it's more the James Brown "hardest working gal in the raid" kind of posh.  If they need damage, I do damage, if they need heals, I heal.  If my class leader is suffering from burn out and doesn't want to heal anymore, they slide me into his spot and I politely heal for him so he can have more fun in the raid...

Are you feeling me on this yet?  Do I sound like someone who would deny anyone anything?  If you said, "No", you would be correct!  I don't deny most folks much.

But, here we go...you're going to love this one.

Last night, as I said earlier, the last piece of damage gear I needed dropped.  Yep, Deathbringer's Will is the name of it.  It's a neat little trinket that shifts me into all sorts of different forms with all sorts of different bonuses that help me do more damage.  I've been waiting for it, seen it drop twice and never got to lay paw one on the thing.  Actually, the first time I dropped, I didn't roll on it purposefully so our big damage guys could have it first.  Team player, remember?  So finally, last night, it drops.  Now, you have to understand, I was healing last night.  That's right, I was a tree doling out healing assignments and keeping people alive.  But being as that I'm two main specs, when it comes to gear, I always ask my raid leader first whether I can roll on something that's not my form for the evening.  Every single time I've asked my raid leader, he just replies with a "go ahead" or "yes" or "just roll" because he knows what I'm going through.  He also knows that I have to keep my gear sets balanced so that I can do any job he asks me to at any moment.

I usually go by the tenet, "If I'm a tree, I roll on tree gear.  If I'm a cat, I roll on cat gear."  Now when the whole raid of twenty-five people are gearing up in a brand new instance and new tier of gear, that works really good.  It allows for me to give away (very intentionally) a chance for gear to the rest of the people in my armor class and keep it really smooth and even.  Unlike the majority of them, who are working on a single set of gear, I'm having to gear up two sets simultaneously which becomes quite a tightrope to walk without being called a loot whore.  Yeah, gearing Rel up is close on to a nightmare that I wouldn't wish on most people.  It's keeping a balance between two specs because at any moment, I could have to switch jobs.  You go half ass in a situation like that and you're not only hurting yourself, but the team as well.  Have I said yet that it's not easy being me?  It's not.  But, we're getting to the point that most of the fights are on farm and almost everyone is completely geared up.  Outside of a few trinkets, rings or neck pieces, we're all pretty much good to go into the next expansion.  It's just little upgrades here and there.

So, Deathbringer's Will drops and the rolls start to fly.  Loot rules are always one main spec item, one tier item per night.  I usually stick to that like glue, because in my situation, you can't ask for more than that because most people don't understand my situation.  Well, I came in third on the rolls.  The first two got thrown out because they had already received a piece of gear for the night, so the trinket dropped into my bags.  I was ecstatic.  It was the final piece to the puzzle, I wouldn't have to worry about gear any more on Rel if I could just land that sucker.  My healing gear is complete, all that was missing was that one little thing to make me truly a force to be reckoned with in any role I was placed in.

But here is the part where some dummy needed to be taken out behind the woodshed.

We move on from the boss that dropped the trinket I won.  It seems as while the rest of us were clearing trash, someone who was in the raid on their alt, who I've been more than tolerant with in the past and even very kind and sweet to, spent a considerable amount of time railing behind my back to a friend of his about the fact I had won the trinket instead of him, to the point of screaming and yelling.  Apparently me winning something I've been waiting for, just as long as everyone else, wasn't ok with him and it was so wrong that I had won something I could use on my main toon instead of his alt.

Just as we're starting the next boss fight, the corner of my screen lights up with a message from someone I don't even know, telling me that the trinket was useless to me, that I wouldn't be using it half the time, along with some other explicatives demeaning me, and that I should give the item I won away to the guy who's throwing a childish fit about it.    Let's not forget that the person behind the alt that ranted and raved to their friend, even to the point of swearing my toon's name, has that same exact trinket on his main toon.  Now, would you not go with me for a second and say that was the outright greediest thing you've ever heard?  If not the rudest?  No, I've only bled night after night and sacrificed for the folks around me on my main.  I've gone and done things for that rude individual's benefit time and time again, taking Rel along for things I had absolutely no reason to go do, other than just being polite and supportive.  Now tell me I didn't have the right to get just a little steamed.  At that point, it was katy-bar-the-door.  I immediately got on the stick with my guild master and let him know what happened.  It didn't take long before that greedy so-and-so was apologizing his fingers off.  Then that sorry individual comes to me and says he was so mad I won it he had to go smoke two cigarettes to get over it, and that's AFTER he's ranted to his friend about it.  Lucky for me, my GM had my back.  So did my raid leader.  Yeah, you could tell the second I told my GM what happened, it went over like a lead balloon because it wasn't too long before that selfish young man was apologizing right, left and center.

See, that's what I don't get.  First off, this is a VIDEO GAME we're talking about, it's not life or death.  It's not like the world is going to end because the pixelized toon you're playing didn't get a silly piece of loot!  I'm not jealous or mad when the rolls don't go my way.  Again, it's a video game.  Who cares?  If I want something and the chips don't fall in my direction, I give a 'woot!' and 'grats' to the people who win.  I don't go to my friends and swear up and down and all sorts of whathaveyou.  If I don't get something, you know what, I'm pretty damn good at making due with what I've got.  I don't ask other people to carry me or give me things.  Everything I have, I've earned, and truth be told, several times over.  If it's my time to get something, it'll happen, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't.

It's people like that who get mad when someone they know buys their lifelong dream car, then they purposefully grind their keys into the paint to ruin it.  Or it's the folks who do something stupid like punch a wall and put a hole in the drywall over a glass of spilled milk.

I mean, come on, help me understand this!  I want to understand why selfish, arrogant people think it's ok to ruin someone else's moment of joy.  I want to understand why in hell people think it's ok that their needs come before everyone else's; or why people who don't bring any nutritional value to the table think that they can take what they want and leave nothing for the rest of us.

Maybe it's just what Daddy says, that some people have the worms.

I'm just really hurt.  Some stranger came and belittled me just because someone thought they deserved something more than I did, but it's someone who is flaky at best, who shows up drunk, who has every sort of detestable quality and sheerly watches his mouth and behaves himself to some sort of degree because he knows I'm watching and listening.

You know, he did apologize up and down for what his friend whispered me.  But you know, he didn't apologize one whit for being a bonehead.

I let him off with a simple warning, "This was a family matter.  You took it outside the family.  Next time, if you have a problem with me or something I'm involved in, you come talk to me first."

I guess I'm too nice to people.  I should have let that kid have it with both barrels.  But when I told KP what had happened, he just came out and slapped the icing on the cake, "That's your main, that's his alt, if he doesn't like it, tough shit", then proceeded to take the greedy, selfish kid out behind the woodshed to tell him just that.

Have I said how much I adore KP today?  Yeah, I do.  He's my sweetie.