It’s kind of hilarious that some people claim that I’m not a writer. It’s true that my pièce de résistance, my epic masterpiece of writing, has never been published, or that I’ve even written the second draft yet. I’ve never even had a piece of writing published except for one short story in a magazine that I probably helped go out of existence (no, I’m not talking about Life magazine). Just because I haven’t been published doesn’t mean I’m not a writer. Let me prove it to you.
For all you writing snobs that are on word #14,604 for NaNoWrimo, consider this. I recently wrote and created an outline for an argumentative hero essay. You fancy NaNo writers may have also received a 100% on an outline too, but you can’t do better than 100%. And I bet you probably made some mistakes while writing your novels. Just because my outline was for my 9th grade son’s English class, doesn’t make it any less impressive. Also, consider that I took that outline and made it into a really good argumentative essay and my son’s grade increased a whole grade level. On the other hand, your published novels may have given you a little street cred, but my outline and subsequent essay increased his grade one whole letter. Your novel didn’t do that. So, who is the real writer here anyways? Let’s just all agree that I do excellent outlines and I’m changing the world.
It’s important for all of you to know these facts, because according to Evagrius Ponticrus, a fourth century monk, I should be dead right now, which would make my outline much more valuable right now. (Dead writer’s works tend to sell really well.) If you aren’t familiar with Evagrius Ponticrus, I wasn’t either until about five minutes ago. He was a 4th century monk, and he was somehow able to outline things in the 4th century, which I think is pretty impressive, because I didn’t even know people could write back then. Good thing he saved it on his laptop.
What Mr. Ponticrus did outline was the seven deadly sins. If you aren’t familiar with them, go watch the movie Seven (I’ve actually never seen the whole thing), and it will help you become familiar. The seven deadly sins are as follows: Pride, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.
If you were like me, you saw this list and thought, yeah, there are two or three on that list that I’m guilty of and I should probably get better at. And you would go about your life trying to fix them and be a better person. Which I did. I was also very relieved that Bitterness wasn’t on the list. (Don’t go saying that it is similiar to one on the list, or I will accuse you of Envy or Greed or something.)
But then I started reading the list and it didn’t really take long to realize that I’ve committed acts on every single one of those. So, like I said, Mr. Poticrus thinks I should be dead right now. In fact, I’ve probably committed two of these sins just in the last few paragraphs.
PRIDE – Remember way back up in the second paragraph when I said, “Let’s all agree that I do excellent work and I’m changing the world”? That sounded a little bit like pride. You know the expression. Pride comes before September 21st (First day of fall is September 22nd). While I escaped certain death this year, it looks like I won’t survive until September 22nd next year. At the very least, don’t expect a bitter post that day.
NV – Again, just earlier in the post, I exhibited a little bit of envy of these imaginary people who actually completed the write (or is it right?) number of words to keep up with NaNo. Most people get green with envy, but mine of more of a purple grey. It’s not like I want those people lives, I just want their words. Is that so much to ask? Oh, and the royalties they get. And their accolades that they get from their parents. Oh, their parents don’t give them accolades? Never mind then. I don’t Nevada (NV) them.
GREED$ – I’ve never been greedy. Because I’m definitely not watching the news every day for the record amount of money that the lottery winner will get which definitely isn’t $1.9 billion and wasn’t delayed for any reason. I’ve never talked about what that money could do for me, like building my castle with fortifications and my private bunker that had all the snacks and video games I could ever want, and full-time security and a mote with alligators. I have no plans for anything like that. I’m not greedy at all.
WRRRRAAATTTHHH – ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? I HAVE NO WRATH! ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF WRATH? THEY CALL ME REVENGERMAN, YEAH, BUT WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH WRATH? I ONLY SEEK FOR REVENGE AGAINST ALL FOR EVERY LITTLE SLIGHT. REVENGE IS A WAY DIFFERENT WORD THAN WRATH.
LUST – YOU KNOW I GO TO THE GYM (sorry, my caps lock got stuck) because I want to get in shape. It has nothing to do with all the other people’s shapes I’m looking at. That I want to be in, of course.
Gluten – Actually, if I’m really being honest, the real reason I go to the gym is because of my gluttony and because I want to continue to be a glutton. Whoever named gluten was probably a glutton and was just not creative enough to come up with a word that was any different. Besides, anyone who has lived through the holiday quadrant of the year that we are currently in (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) and hasn’t been a glutton is either lying about their diet, or is lactose, gluten and everything intolerant and that is just cheating.
Lazy (Sloth) – I guess it’s named after the animal that is really lazy, but they could probably name it after me because sloths don’t have anything on me. One time, I woke up at 4 o’clock. PM. I’ve spent entire weekends on the couch. I was so lazy that I didn’t even go to sleep. Just layed there not moving. One time instead of going to pick up a pizza, I had one delivered. Homer Simpson once called me lazy. Sometimes I don’t even finish m
Seeing as I am still able to write this from my living body, I’m thinking the Seven Deadly Sins Justice System has fallen down on the job. Either that or they have added more sins, and subsins. Or there are so many people breaking the laws, that they just treat it like speeding, and they only pull over people that are sinning way faster than other people. They’ve probably told their Seven Deadly police officers to just issue warnings and tell them to slow down their deadly sinning. They are probably just sentencing people to Seven Deadly Sin probation and sending them to Seven Deadly Sin rehab to get Seven Deadly sober.
Which is to say to just make sure you are Deadly Sinning a little slower than your neighbor and you should be just fine. Because it ain’t cheating if you don’t get caught.
WWWWWRRRRRAAATTTHHHHHH
Bitter 7 Deadly Sins Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
You are hilarious man!
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From time to time. I’ll need to send this comment to my wife to prove that I’m funny. She never laughs at my jokes anymore.
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She knows you’re funny, she’s just keeping your ego in check 🤣.
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My ego is in check when I have to beg her to use some of our money every once in a while. I think she thinks that I keep telling the same dad jokes, so she is over them.
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I think that monk missed one. Stupidity has to be in the top 8 deadly sins.
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Yeah, that monk needed to go back to the drawing board. If there even was some such thing back in his day.
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M’Lord, the Squirrels and Alligators have also been trained. They come from Florida, so they’re naturally violent. And ready for war in your honor should you need it. I was thinking perhaps we should create a mobile castle. Something similar to a Submarine for the future when Global Warming inevitably leads to a Global Flood. Like that Kevin Costner movie from the 80’s, Waterworld. Otherwise we would build a bunker that would sink into the sea and kill us all. Besides, alligators are aquatic on some level. We can give them special diving suits for the salt water or hide salt water alligators as well as fresh water alligators. I was thinking of a giant ark like the one from the 2012 movie. That way we could fit in ten times the stuff you could ever want for you and your family. And any loyal minions you wish to join you.
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It sounds like my loyal minnions are finally thinking of some good concrete ideas. I think you should be the captain over the workforce that should start building this thing immediately. I will be in my soundproof room if you should need me. Though it will be blacked out, so I won’t be able to see you, because I will be asleep or playing video games.
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That’s okay Sire, I have bought you an X Box. And I can communicate via messages and voice Mail for you when you do wake up. That way you can monitor our progress. I’ll start looking for more local militias as well as warehouses and disgruntled government employees who shall be interested in building your grand Palatial Ark. Also video game designers for you to always have the newest games and never be bored.
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I like the plan. Just make sure the priority is the newest video games, then the security. Got to make sure I’m on the fastest path to breaking all 7 deadly sins.
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Consider it done my Lord Revengerman. I might also hire an army of Hackers and Gamers to do online warfare for you. That way you will have online security as well!
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This is why I hired you as my only human minion. The rest of the humans are not to be trusted.
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Thank you my Master. I have already begone with my local Florida animals. But in your honor I have set forth to recruit and train Scottish Animals as well to increase the ranks of your Bitter Armies.
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If you could make sure the Scottish animals moo and bark in a Scottish accent that would be great too.
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Of course! They may even be given Scottish Military Uniforms
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And they will all wear kilts.
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And they will eat Haggis!
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Yes, they can eat their own. Especially if we are training a lot of sheep.
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YES!!!! Cannibalism will make them strong warriors!
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Yes, and it will also make them more obedient.
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Of course! If they don’t obey commands they will be fed to the loyal soldiers
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Ha! Animals eating other animals. I love it!
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We shall have fierce warriors to battle for us!
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Yep, they will battle to stay alive. That is motivation to protect my bitter privacy.
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And to make them extra bitter!
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We will feed them just enough food to make them satisfied, but just little enough to make them grouchy.
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Beware my lord, we don’t want a mutiny on our hands. Besides……scrawny soldiers are useless to your cause
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They also need to be motivated. If they get too fat, they will lose the fire to protect me.
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Leave to me Sire, I have hired a few trainers. Both military and fitness
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Great. Get them trained and snarling. If they do that, they probably won’t need to eat the flesh of the humans. They aren’t very tasty anyways.
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Some will like human flesh and we can use those to attack your enemies my Lord. Though your enemies are not very human I dare say.
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I’m sooo disappointed, Ben. I read your entire post looking forward to the part about avarice, because I couldn’t remember what avarice meant and thought it was just another made up girls’ name. But there was nothing! Or else I missed it. Now I have to actually go look it up in the dictionary, so thanks a lot. 😝
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Always glad to cause frustration people’s lives. I would have to look up the avarice. I assume that it means rice named ava. But you know me, I take everything literally.
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It turned out to just be another word for greed. Must be how they say it in the Catholic language.
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Ah, greed. One of my favorite deadly sins. The one that shall never be satiated.
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Loved this post! Absolutely hilarious! I enjoyed every bit of it, but my favorite is the unfinished paragraph about sloth.
You definitely *are* a writer Ben, regardless of anything the snobs (who are definitely committing NV right now after seeing your post) might say. Quality over quantity: your 1200 highly entertaining words here are worth far more than the 14,000 boring useless words those losers have written this month. 🙂
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I’m sure there were bits that you didn’t like. On the other hand, I will agree that I’m definitely a better writer than all the NaNoWriMo’s and way more prideful (Sin #1) and NVoius of all of them that actually get paid.
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