VIOLENCE AS A LAST RESORT is cookie cutter nonsense belched forth by fair-minded mental health provider-charlatans who see everyone on the planet as a potential victim/client. Truly and sincerely. It’s nonsense.

Let me provide a germane example, lasered direct to the skeptically purity-signaling pacifists amongst. Take this:

If it’s immediately impending that some agitated menopausal PTA President Penelope is intent on buggering my best friend (Derek) with all the kitchen appliances in the Savers Thrift Store “Aisle of Discarded 1990s Wedding Gifts,” I’m not going to take a moment to sooth myself with calming boysenberry chamomile tea, deescalating myself through mindfully applied breathing meditation whilst envisioning a unicorn with a wilty horn (he needs Horn Viagra) basking in the crisp sunshine of my Mindful Happyland so I can have a civil conversation with the aggressor about how just because her dad was a grumpy and famous TV chef with “boundary issues” there’s no reason she should take it out on my best friend Derek and his bum. When Derek’s skinny denims and Spidey Underoos are around his ankles and the aggressor is lubing up the fondue pot with Jergens from the “Aisle of Half Used Toiletries Because Mom Died and I Can’t Be Arsed to Have an Estate Sale and Sorting the Home’s Contents into Keep or Trash Piles is Too Much Effort,” resorting to violence is still on the table as a logical option. It’s a “Top Three Option” that includes immediate violence towards the aggressor, laughing heartily at Derek’s surreal predicament, and hitting on the ginger lass in the “Aisle of Discarded 1990s Party Games Starring Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and Anything with the Cast of Friends on the Box.”

No time for a therapeutic chin wag about how violence is the last resort. What I’m going to do is grab the closest bread machine by the cord and swing away like a Dungeons & Dragons paladin wielding a hefty medieval mace all crusty with the dried blood of my vanquished foes (mostly parakeet blood) until she drops the fondue pot as she fades into a well-deserved ouchy coma and the bottle of Jergens drops from her unconscious hands while the lotion develops a thick plug of hardening goo in the pump nozzle. Lotion takes a long time to get thick like this, implying I’m going to beat her with the bread machine for a satisfyingly extended event. Take that, Penelope.

Point is, violence is the FIRST response in this instance. If I took time for your purity shaming feelgoodery, I’d be obligated to go with Derek to the ER and help him explain that the uncomfortably lodged fondue pot isn’t embarrassingly jammed because he “tripped again.” At our age, coming up with a new excuse or shameful truth for things stuck in his bum is too kinetic for our waning years. We stopped being clever in 7th grade.

In this instance, violence is the FIRST option for which I’m a hero and not a villain. Take your cookie cutter feelgoodery far far away and enjoy some delectably thick-like-drying-Jergens calming warm fondue until you recognize how logically limp “violence as a last resort” truly sounds, in theory and in practice. Just don’t use that specific fondue pot.

So concluding your educational social berating, in this instance, violence begets violence. And rightfully so.

Peace out.

*Reprinted by kind permission of