Self-Entitlement was the third little pig in this house of smoke and he built his personal domain out of Spike TV, periodicals demeaning to women, and his hero worship of Denis Leary and the alter ego, Tommy Gavin. His mind as well as his room was filled with ash; the ash from his three to four pack a day habit and the ashes of his life that he burns away like flash paper. The sad aspect of this little pig’s life was that he channeled Denis Leary/Tommy Gavin so often and for so long that he started believing he was Denis Leary.

“Denis is the man! “He () knows how to handle ()” – I’ll tell you that he ended that sentence with an alternative word for women. “Denis can () read their minds. He knows what they are up to and he doesn’t put up with their (). He takes care of their (). He teaches them learn their place.”

Yeah, it made me mad when he said it to me.

Self-Entitlement came early to his name. He wanted to graduate high school so he could go to the parties but he had failed two classes and had to attend summer school so the parties he went to that May and June were not for him. He resented it. He liked money so his work ethic was solid but he complained because it took work to get the money. He resented the claim on his time because it took away from him impressing his friends with his knowledge of women and weapons and violence all of which he acquired from the television shows “Rescue Me” and from Spite TV’s show, “Manswers,” which I'm told uses the Socratic method of bringing forth enlightenment.

The requirements of his time to gain what he felt he deserved without effort left him angry. He became angrier when others did not understand why he was angry. This anger swirled round and round his mind, eating away at rational thought until all he had left to reason with was his anger. Since violence was only tolerated in certain specific situations, and by that I mean when he could get away with it, he had to learn to channel his anger. He used his words.

By the age of twenty-three, he was a veteran of cursing. It was simply how he had adapted to communicate his displeasure with everyone and everything, but he also used it to intimidate along with physical posturing and increased decibel levels. Always simmering, if his anger flared so would his nostrils, his eyes, and his eyebrows. His nostrils would widen into a shape closely resembling Vulcan ears. His eyes would bulge as his eyebrows hit his hairline and would shift spasmodically back and forth. Throwing his rounded shoulders back, he would thrust his index finger out towards the offending party of his absolute authority with the air of authority of the Queen of Hearts. “Off with their heads!”

Self-Entitlement was angry all the time but no one knew why. When asked he would only say, “Because everyone is () stupid.” His constant stream of conversation was always tainted with hostility and repressed rage. He would come home from work and was either going to “() punch him in the () throat,” or “() kick his () ass,” or “() kill the ()” – something to do with someone’s mother. And that was just what he wanted to do to his boss though he only verbalized these threats away from work. He had a chance at a better life, a better job by going to college but he quit when he realized they were serious about his having to go to class. “College is stupid.”

Needing a job, he applied for a position as a dispatcher for a security firm. He was hired to sit at a desk and take calls, but after three months he was required to go through an anger management course for abusive language to the officers in the field. He attended and went back to work better able to suppress his rage, saving it up for when he walked out the door. The truly frightening thing was that he was able to eventually apply for a gun permit so he could become one of those “() morons” and get a raise in pay. He practiced and practiced but failed the first two tests because of his emotional state. He was angry and pulled his shots to the right. But the third time was a charm, so to speak, and he got his license along with a request for another go round of anger management. He attended, he claimed so he could carry his “Glock 22 with the extra mag, the best () handgun in the () world.”

The irony for this Denis Leary wannabe was that his mother found out that he’d spent his money on the Glock and the projectiles that were necessary for his target practice and she became angry. She demanded that he go back to college to become a Physician's Assistant. Never fear, oh voyeuristic reader, lest you panic thinking he may get his certification and license and get hired at your doctor’s office. When he discovered the prerequisites required for going to PA school, he put on the brakes most effectively. He started flunking again. The word prerequisite is the euphemism he uses so he doesn’t have to say the words bachelor’s degree, so reign that panic in for now.

Academic ability aside, he also may not be healthy enough to go to class full time. Self-Entitlement smokes every bit of three packs a day and is well on his way through his fourth by bedtime and he drinks excessively. Excessively. Two bottles of wine, seven or eight beers, and a vodka and milk mix that he carried to bed in case he became thirsty were his usual liquid fair. No, not every day silly, that would be too much. Only four or five days a week. He had been at this level of consumption of these particular addictions for almost nine years. Yes, long before it was legal to do so. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. Denis Leary would be proud.

To add insult to injury to his view of himself, Self-Entitlement has acquired a rather paunchy stomach owing to his consumption of beer without benefit of any exercise. Nicotine stains keep his fingers yellowed and his fingernails are texture with deep ridges that appear bluish and unhealthy. If he took his shirt off, which was often because he was so proud of his zombie getting his legs severed tattoo, the dimpling from cellulite was visible. His lips were always tight with anger and his walk was a swagger. Between his constant elevated level of anger and his poor eating and drinking habits coupled with his smoking, elf-Entitlement was on daily blood pressure medicine and had been asked to exercise and told to stop drinking and smoking. Remember, this was a twenty-four year old, not a forty-five year old.

His mother washed her hands of shortly after his nineteenth birthday when she confronted him with about his immature life choices. He explained to her in a loud enough voice, standing his ground “like a man. I told her she couldn’t () tell me what to () do.”

And that was true. She couldn’t. She was frightened. So she packed him up while he was out and dropped his things off at her brother’s house, Lies to Himself. Lies to Himself knew his little sister was at her wits end and that was okay with him. Women are weak creatures who shouldn’t be allowed to raise boys into men. That was a man’s job and he gladly took over. So Self-Entitlement moved in with his uncle and his cousin, Masochism. And he followed his uncle’s example of how to be a man. Like Lies to Himself and Masochism, Self-Entitlement did not clean his room, wash his dishes, sweep, mop, or clean the bathroom. His room had crusted over dishes everywhere, dirty laundry everywhere, and empty beer cans, wine and vodka bottles lying everywhere. Cigarette butts were piled so high they covered his nightstand and had fallen to the carpet where he ground them under his foot. The air smelled of ash. His clothes smelled of ash. His life reeked of ash. He dutifully took his medicine with a swig of vodka and lit up to show the doctor that he didn’t know it all.

Self-Entitlement learned much from his hero, Denis Leary, and he took that knowledge and applied it where he saw it work best, on women, specifically his girlfriend.

I have been trying to figure out what title to bequeath to her. Nothing printable comes to mind. I’m going to have to go with the abridged version of the name that kept flitting through my mind. The Giggler.

The Giggler had carefully packaged herself into a delicious version of what she believed made men happy. She had no opinion of her own. Case in point. She was out on a date with Self-Entitlement and asked him to order for her because “I don’t know what I like. You do.” And yes, then she giggled. She was a planned exhibit of lust and fantasy that, in the harsh light of day, proved the validity of the statement: It’s not the years it’s the mileage. To watch her prepare herself for public consumption was a theatrical event. She always prepared for her date with Self-Entitlement at his place. The shower started it all. She would make it last and make it loud. A day at the spa could provide no more luxury for the Giggler than that shower.

Thirty-five, sometimes forty-five minutes of water cascading over her skin and hair, then at least fifteen minutes of toweling off. She would open the door with her towel wrapped around her and go to Self-Entitlement’s room with the words, “Don’t peek” that were prefaced and ended with a giggle.

The Giggler was also an enabler of Self-Entitlement's alcohol and nicotine habit. She had an addiction of her own. When told she could get lung cancer from all th cigarettes, she proudly explained that her breasts were not her own so it was impossible for her to get lung cancer.

I had not personally heard it, I wouldn't have believed it etiher.

Beautiful for as long as it lasted, the Giggler had no backup plan beyond eventually marrying Self-Entitlement. “It’s what women are meant to do.” Her brain was stressed enough with getting her GED to last a lifetime. She finally earned it on the second try and her pride was such that she celebrated with her man and a friend of his because he’d asked her to. English was her first and only language but her local dialect was such that translating what she was saying took a moment to process. “Oh, my, Gaw-awd (God)! I kan-yent (can't) ba-leaf (believe) you sa-yad (said) that. You-ah (You are) so fun-nay (funny)!” That was a typical cell phone conversation. To her tender lover, she was often heard saying, “Oh, my, Gaw-awd! Stop doin' thi-yut (that)! Thi-yut hurts!”

The Giggler knew enough to work what she had, her asset. She dressed for tips at the hair-cutting place she worked at. “I’ya snip hay-yurah (hair).” Hooked on phonics is working for me right now to hand over a visible sample of her oratory abilities. She wore the uniform of the alluring kitten and built her own personal house out of lust with no hope of moving out. She felt that lust was all she could offer and if she didn’t play the game, she would be cast aside. She worked the room, every room, any room, to be desired by all because she was insecure in her relationship with Denis Leary, sorry, Self-Enttilement. She firmly believed that he could and would cast her aside at any given moment for a younger version of herself. Yes, younger version. She was twenty-four and life had been so confusing and hard. Lines would come. She wasn’t getting any younger. She didn’t giggle as much when she thought about her bleak future, of eventually turning twenty-seven.

Yeah, I rolled my half a century old eyes, too.

She believed her chances were getting slimmer and slimmer as the guys were getting married and Self-Entitlement was holding off, for whatever reason she hated to ask. But the Giggler was the reigning queen for the moment and she worked it for all it was worth. She did her boyfriend’s bidding and bought creams and did sit ups and pushups to keep all the right places tight. But she knew that eventually the ravages of time would take over. She’d turn twenty-seven and life, as she had it in her pretty little giggling head, would be almost over

She didn’t understand was that she was starving her brain of knowledge, her soul of self-worth, and her heart of any dreams that didn’t involve validation from a man. She was clinging to a stereotype that couldn’t last without airbrush or botox. The real person inside had died or was dying. She had built her house of lust and straw and she was the one who was blowing it down. Self-Entitlement didn’t care one way or the other because as his televangelist, Tommy Gavin, had told him about how to handle women, “You serve two purposes in this house – you can give me a () or make me a sandwich. I’m not in the mood for () and I had a late breakfast, so you are () out of luck.”