Back in the day, I had a catchphrase, a mantra, a slogan ... whatever you want to call it. I didn't really mean for it to be so prominent, but it just worked out that way. It would always come up in response to someone commenting on me in one way or another. They might tell me I was nice (grr), or mean, or ugly, or funny, or smart, or cute, or fat, or scrum-dilly-umptious, or whatever they opted to call me. My response came out automatically after a while: "I'm just Abs."
I thought it was a simple and effective response. I was just me. That was all I could be. Typically, the commenter would smile at that and go on about his or her business, now secure in the knowledge that whatever else I might appear to be, I was just me. This wasn't some Walt Whitman-esque yawping, mind you; it was just my way of turning aside comments that I didn't otherwise quite know what to do with. Instead of coming up with something relevant and appropriately clever, I would just aver my total yet simple Absness.
After a while people got used to it. Some of them would try to apply the phrase for me, but they would almost never get it quite right. Something was missing. They would either address me as "Just Abs," as in "Hello, Just Abs." Maybe that was because they weren't Abs, and they couldn't possibly be expected to get it right while lacking that certain thing the French call ... "I don't know what." Still, in general that automatic response became part of the fabric of my interaction with a lot of people.
After a while, though, Lawton and the Pretty Boy staged a mini-intervention. "You need a new campaign. That one is not working." I'm confident it was the Pretty Boy who made this statement. Methinks the Pretty Boy is very big on what is and isn't working. Recall that he lobbied for me to shave off the goatee, claiming that it wasn't working. In the face of this particular claim of his, I thought, "First of all, it's not a damned campaign! It's just something I say." I decided to say that out loud, but Lawton, who typically likes nothing more than to wind me up, was prepared for that objection. "No. It's a campaign," he said, almost before I had finished my argument.
I might have argued with them for a little while before giving it up as a lost cause that I didn't particularly care about, especially when there was beer around that was significantly more interesting. As is often their wont, those two guys kept going in some sort of bizarre positive feedback loop, and they talked about it for quite a while.
Over time they came back at me quite often about needing a new "campaign." And their arguments were either effective or I proved highly suggestible or something else, because I eventually stopped saying it. I never stopped really being just Abs, though, even if I stopped pointing the fact out to everyone who needed to be reminded. The truth is that I remain Abs -- and just Abs -- to this day.
Why do I tell you all of this? It's because of a video Lawton sent to me recently. Now that all of the presidential debates are over, mayhap I can add a wrinkle. Even though, as is always the case, the author of this article didn't quite get the gist, I'm willing to say that I'm just Abs, and I approve of this message.
