Perhaps a hammer would leave an impression

"That's so gross."

Three short little words. Four if you want to get technical about the contraction leading off the statement.

A softly spoken sentiment as unwelcome as an impromptu family reunion parading in while attempting to do unspeakably carnal things to their sweet daughter on top of their heirloom dining room table.

They always seem startled when I tell them to refrain from saying things of that nature. It never occurs to them that anyone at all would have a problem with them expressing their honest opinion. I always have to repeat myself. Then they invariably desire to know why I would level such an injunction at them.

Why?!

Why the bloody fuck is it so difficult for people to be aware of what words are drooling out of their slack jaws at any given moment? If most folks are able to avoid lumbering into walls and manipulating door-knobs, how in the name of Darwin's droopy drawers can they be so blithely unaware of their environment? But no, they will blunder into an adult store and declare something is disgusting. What will they do for an encore, attend the Folsom Street Fair waving placards reading "Stamp Your Faggots Dead!" in the hopes of advancing their anti-smoking cause? How about visiting a biker bar and not only pontificate at length at how wearing leather indicates moral deficiency, but pretend the lines of motorcycles parked out front are just chromed up dominoes set up to tip in sequence? Go ahead. Stupidity should be sharply painful.

I should not need to spell out to allegedly mentally competent adults that regardless of their individual sexual tastes, there is nothing in the store that does not cater to someone's sexual interests.

Makes me want to leap over the counter and demand to know what gets them hot. What sort of things cause their bodies to start excreting those vile, unwholesome fluids and carry on at brutal, graphically horrific length about how disgusting they are because of it. I can do it. I have the depth of understanding to twist even the most chaste of desires into a warped travesty. I wonder how fast I could get their eyes to turn glassy with revulsion. I wonder how long it would take to reduce them to broken, sobbing husks on the battered store tile. I wonder if I could fill them so full of self-loathing and shame that even a whisper of libidinous desire wracks their bodies with uncontrollable nausea.

I won't however. Too much chance of collateral damage to an undeserving customer. Too unprofessional.

It would be wasted effort anyway. Those I would descend upon like the wrath of a balked sexual drive would never understand why I would visit such malice upon them. Their feeble minds would never grasp the connection between their voiced opinion and the verbal beating I was exacting. No lesson would be learned. No understanding would be acquired. They will forever be mindless cattle cluttering the landscape with the arrogant smugness of their own enlightened proclivities.

Instead, get to swallow the venom back behind a tired, disappointed expression and explain once again to some ill-favored by-blow that while they have every right to enjoy their opinions, that it might not be shared by everyone around them and therefore should remain unexpressed. Perhaps they should teach something like this in pre-school, something catchy like "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to visualize a picturesque meadow in the middle of nowhere, so soothing and free of humanity, and the weakening struggles of the asshole I'm holding submerged in that cheerfully burbling stream flowing through it.