The Art of Pissing off People You Don't Even Know

     So you say you want to learn how to alienate total strangers whom you actually admire?  Really, when you think about it, who wouldn't?  Well, you've come to the right place.  Come sit at the feet of the master.
     Remember how, on April 20th, I published a post describing my admiration for YA novelist A.S. King and her novels, "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" and "Everybody Sees the Ants?"  Sure you do.  In fact, I've been really looking forward to reading her next release, "Ask the Passengers," due out in October, and wondering whether I could summon the courage to ask her for an interview afterward.  All good so far, right?  And, of course, I've been following her blog because I like the off-kilter way she thinks and the values she novelistically espouses.  I mean, you can tell when an author is anti-bullying, or anti-crushing-weight-of-conformity, or anti-stupid-prejudices, right?  She's clearly all of those things, and more.  And here is where the plot thickens.
     Yesterday morning I read her latest blog post, "A Week In My Cave," in which she asserted that she "doesn't give a shit about politics," and it started to eat at me.  And it kept eating at me all day.  Now, here's where the instructional part comes in: what did I choose to do in response?  Why, I chose to post a condescending, self-righteous comment on her blog (my very FIRST comment on someone else's blog, no less), advising her that it would behoove her to give a shit about politics, because whom we citizens choose to elect to public office actually affects our lives and those of others we care about.   To which she responded with a politeness I did not deserve, explaining that I had taken her offhand remark out of context and that she does, indeed, read newspapers, vote, write often to her congresspersons, and act in many other socially conscious ways which I might have known something about if I had cared to do my homework before blasting her on her blog.  And then I apologized.  And here's what we would have said in New York when I was growing up about the value of my apology: "that and a token will get you on the subway."
     So there you have it.  I've publicly called out an author whom I respect, and I was wrong.  And here's a little quiz: what would you now say are the odds that she would agree to my interviewing her after "Passengers" comes out?  Zero?  Far too generous.  The odds, my friends, are now deep into the negative numbers, and likely to remain there throughout eternity.
     End of tutorial.  Additional pointers are available upon request.  You know who should be banished to a cave and not allowed out to interact with other humans until she can learn some rules about courteous discourse?  Here's a hint: it's not A.S. King.