The Wit’s Guide to Entitlements
Or, they’re just deserts
Entitlements are things that are owed to you on paper but that in practice no one thinks you deserve. The dictionary won’t tell you that, but I think you’re entitled to know.
“The internet is 90% complaining and entitlement and I hate it and I deserve better.”
— Andrew Michaan
Take David Dingwall, please. As a pugnacious Canadian politician with a funny name, he spent his career searching for ignominy. He finally found it in 2005 after being appointed president of the Royal Canadian Mint and called onto the carpet over his excessive expense claims. “I am entitled to my entitlements,” he told a parliamentary committee, and the phrase became fodder for an attack ad. It’s tough to be redundant, arrogant, and accurate in just six words, but there it was.
“I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.”
— Jack Benny
Another six-word statement people love to hear: Don’t you know who I am? If the premium service you know you merit is eluding you, it’s probably because the rental car clerk doesn’t recognize the eminence before them. This gentle reminder is often all it takes for them to lift the velvet rope and whisk you into the Premium Ultra Platinum Elite Preferred Lounge. I’ll be the one waving to you from the raw bar with my mouth full of Alaskan king crab.
“One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.”
— Jean Giraudoux
Who decides who’s entitled to what? The welfare state? God? The person who gets there first? Social programs administered by the state are really only referred to as entitlements in the United States, which may be how the word became its own opposite. If you’ve paid into Social Security all your workaday life, surely you’re entitled to not eat cat food in your golden years? Or at least get the Fancy Feast? But “entitlement spending” became a political pinata, just as the logical and orderly “estate tax” was rebranded as the callously cruel “death tax.”
“Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they have stolen.”
— Mort Sahl
Perhaps the best measure of a society’s general level of entitlement is its capacity to form an orderly line. If you deeply fear the shaming that would result from cutting the line, you have a queue like the one outside Wimbledon each year. If you figure your time is worth more than everyone else’s, you wear their tsk-tsks and eyerolls as a badge of honour.
“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
— Frank Lloyd Wright
In a comically long airport security line last week, we witnessed a bold individual slip under the stanchions to avoid the bovine queuing procedures. No one said anything but looks were exchanged. On the other side of the screens, this person had been pulled aside for a pat down. Those who noticed, noticed. He was entitled to his entitlements.
You’re entitled to some numbers
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“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”
— George Orwell
That was the last entry in Eric Blair’s notebook before he died at the age of 46, long before the invention of Botox.
That was Issue 232 of Get Wit Quick exactly as you deserved it. A library card entitles you to read Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting for three weeks, after which you must hand it to the next patron. The ❤️ below may merit a tap.
Thanks for the reminder about Dingwall. Made my day!