...I have a fairly lofty opinion of myself, but it struck me tonight (again) just how...small some people can be.

To recap, my temple choir does a yearly show in which we sing showtunes and such. There are solos and they're handed out during rehearsals to whoever wants them. If you miss a bunch of rehearsals and thus, miss the handing out of the solos, tough cookies. You're supposed to be there. But this is not satisfactory (or rather, wasn't satisfactory) for one particular rehearsal-skipping woman. She decided that since she'd been with the choir for three years (which is actually two, since numbers, among other things, get slippery with this lady), she'd point blank ask for some solos after they'd been given out.

Pushy broad, this one. But she went and asked for mine. Which the director acquiesced to. Somehow. Don't ask me how, he's normally a fabulous man. But again, she's a pushy sumbitch.

So this hits me not in the privacy before rehearsal when mature people tell each other such things (wait, if she was mature, she wouldn't have thrown a temper tantrum and demanded solos....right...), but instead in the middle of the fucking rehearsal right before I was about to sing it. The fuck you say.

So, startled into silence by the sheer peevishness of such a display, I let her struggle through it (yes, it's too high for her, of course, but it's her absolute favorite, you know). At the end, I take her aside and ask if we might share it, since we sound good together, anyway. I'm told okay, reluctantly.

Phew, I think. At least there's something of an adult to work with here.

Wrong, oh me. Oh silly me. The next rehearsal, again in the middle of the goddamned rehearsal, Ms. Sumbitch announces to everyone that she'd rather do the song and surely I'd be all right with this.

The fuck you say. Again.

I seethe. Oh, how I seethe. But I learn lessons in craftiness and talk the director into adding a new piece to the show, where I get to do a solo and it can't possibly be her favorite, favorite song because, gosh, she already has one.

Meanwhile, I still have the very beginning and the very end of my original one, at least, since she didn't want to have to deal with those bits. Fine. Or so I think.

Tonight, again, in the middle of the goddamned rehearsal, she up and sings my part at the end. Sings it wrongly, sings it badly, ruins the fucking thing.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

So I take a couple of deep breaths, wait until after the rehearsal like an adult and say, "Okay, if we're going to share it, we should get the timing right at the end. Let's practice it."

This is met with hemming and hawing and Oh-I-thought-we-agreed-that-I'd-do-the-end-or-that's-the-impression-I-had-from-when-last-we-talked.

The fuck you did, bitch.

I stare at her. I've had enough. "Actually, I'd like to sing it - whether we do it together or not, doesn't matter, your choice. But I'd like to sing it."

She looks vaguely embarassed (but also extremely pissy, so my empathy is abruptly cut off), and then comes out with, "I don't know how to say this - but I'd really like to have a song of my own." Keep in mind now, she actually has three other partial songs all to herself. Oh, but wait - she doesn't like them as much as this one [pity she keeps fucking it up then, eh?]...this is really her absolute favorite.

So, I look at her, think just how much better I am than her in singing, honesty, and apparently, life at large - and let her take the ending of her favoritest song in the world.

And remember her as petty and mean, like a peasant. Grubby words and selfishness, a gray little sludge trying to shine itself magenta-purple in the sunlight....and only coming away with a grimy, sooty puce.

I am a songbird of purples and reds.

You are beneath me.