Conversation Stoppers

You know what I mean, it's when you're having a conversation then out of nowhere someone drops a bomb and the shock value is such that it's time to change the subject or call a cab.  Or maybe security.  On the radio today I heard an interview with a couple of aboriginal scholars about their take on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to address the horrid and criminal treatment of First Nations children by nuns, priests, monks, teachers and others in the notorious residential native schools.  When one of them mentioned that Canada is an illegitimate state the host/moderator said, "Wow, that's a conversation stopper,"  Which it is.  The host/moderator is a very skilled and experienced interviewer and was very successful in getting the guest to elucidate without inaugurating World War III.
     Dropping conversation stoppers can be a lot of fun if you like to engage in social terrorism.  For example you could say, "Everyone knows that Stephen Harper is a fascist and that he is going to successfully undermine the next election and install himself as Canadian Dictator-For-Life;" or the "Royal Family is nothing but state subsidized parasites who are completely out of touch with real life and ordinary people'; or "Obama is the Anti-Christ"; or 'that multinational corporations with our elected governments and the banks are conspiring to poison our food supply in the interest of reducing the global population"; or fill in the blanks.
     It is a kind of recreational irresponsibility.  It eliminates boredom while splashing ice water on pedantic twits.  Or it could guarantee you a night in hospital emergency if not ICU.  It's a great attention getter too if you're feeling neglected, underestimated or have a self-esteem deficiency.  I've seen some people use this very skillfully, among them college and university profs and entertainers: for example, many years ago in my political science class our prof declared that there is very little difference between the extreme right and the extreme left in political terms and reality.  In fact all you have to do is scratch a radical, and you will find lurking underneath a reactionary, and vice-versa.  I am reminded here of when I saw Joan Baez in her Amnesty International tour in 1974 and I was a callow eighteen years of age.  She let out a lovely conversation stopper when she decried all manner of violence stating that "there is no difference between revolutionary and reactionary violence."  Another conversation stopper.
     Of course these people were in a position to utter conversation stoppers because they were holding the podium and we had to listen and swallow what they were telling us whether liking it or not.  In social settings it gets a little tricky.  We are all on the same playing field and it is supposedly equal.  For example at work, in the staff room when a very ignorant coworker, a rather obnoxious young woman who wasn't especially well liked stated when I came into work carrying an umbrella on a rainy day, "In Calgary only women or gay men carry umbrellas.  If you're a man and you have an umbrella it means you're gay."  This was said in the early eighties when there was still a lot of social stigma about being gay and I knew I had been targeted with a conversational missile.  Not knowing how to answer I remained silent and peacefully ground my teeth.  A couple of weeks later I got my revenge.  In a conversation among coworkers I mentioned that I was going to participate in a huge demonstation against war and nuclear weapons to which the bitch from Calgary loudly brayed, "I didn't know we had a communist among us."  Impaling her with my best blue-eyed glare I replied calmly but sharply, "Honey, I'm way further left than that."  After that she took great care to avoid me.
     I used to specialize in conversation stoppers, or should I say conversation bombs.  I was, and to a degree still am, very angry, very clever, and still have an excellent sense of comedic timing.  It is only too enjoyable putting people, especially self-important fools with status, in their place.  Bring on the conversation stopper, the bomb, the sentence that pronounces sentence and then either it's time to tactfully change the subject, leave or the gloves come off and it ain't gonna be pretty.
     It's become too easy to do this and I am trying not to but at times it is still a kind of reflex action.  I am still taming my inner Joan Rivers.  I do seem to be getting better.  I am learning to reserve my conversation stoppers for politicians and irritatingly smug journalists and radio personalities.  Slowly the practice of kindness and love is getting me past this need to leave scorched earth in my wake and reduce my foes to little piles of ashes.  I seem to be finding it easier to make and keep friends these days.  And I still haven't woken up in ICU.