It has happened this way throughout our history, and we should be used to it by now.
The overtures have been made, the opening salvos thrown, and each candidate in the campaign to secure the desired outcome has painstakingly made the case for why it needs to happen, and why it needs to happen right now. However, sometimes the usual strategies don't work, and one of the party members involved decides to test the waters; to see if the other person might be able to take it when things start getting a little nasty. Then, before you know it, both willing participants are getting nasty. And damned if they don't seem to be getting rather excited by it.
Yes, things always get a little crazy in the run-up to an erection.
Things can get a little awkward, too. One of the people vying for the big pay off at the end of the campaign usually gambles on pushing the nasty stuff a little too far. Suddenly both sides are miffed, and go to their separate quarters, arms folded across their chests. Just when it seemed like a negative strategy was going to put the erection in the bag, it has backfired. The outcome of the erection is once again up in the air.
Of course, each party member is also preoccupied with dredging up the past, so an erection can often be suddenly and irrevocably sabotaged by the eagerness of one to make accusations about the other. This usually involves allegations of unsavory activities that happened long before the two hopefuls even knew each other. Nothing kills a possible erection faster than a new revelation about a thoughtless mistake made ages ago by one of the two key players in the drama. Soon, people outside the situation are asked to weigh in, and the attacks become public knowledge, with each person having to defend their position on the erection to a neutral third-party. Now, an intimate attempt at changing the course of an erection has degenerated, leaving those involved no choice but to mass debate.
It is difficult to lay blame at the doorstep of any participant during this familiar dance. Each party has a vested interest in making sure the erection goes their way. And they want it so badly that minds are clouded, and whatever good intentions were brought to the table at the outset soon devolve into baser, competitive instincts. Both parties then forget that the reasons they started down this path to even trying for the erection in the first place grew out of a desire to do what was right for humanity: to create optimal conditions for the continuation of the species.
Once this key motivating factor is lost, the erection loses its focus and its overall purpose. It can even taint the whole process to such an extent that it seeps into the mindset of the person who eventually achieves the erection victory, and before you know it that negativity crosses over into future dealings with colleagues, who have themselves gone through their share of erection cycles and know how fraught with frustration they can be.
Still, erections will always be with us, so we just have to accept their many different incarnations. There is no doubt, though, that in the time period leading up to what always seems, to all concerned, like a very important erection, things really do have a tendency to get out of hand.
James Napoli is an author and humorist. More of his comedy content for the Web can be found here.