Tuesday, March 16, 2010

That Guy

There's an episode of American Dad where Stan is on trial in heaven.

In a moment of tension, he pulls out a gun and threatens a room full of heaven people. They laugh at him. "Earthly guns have no power here."




Then he steals a "heaven gun" from a guard and waves it around. Everyone recoils in horror. A suit-wearing angel stands up and asks, about heaven guns, "Why do we have those again?"

At the end of the scene the guy/angel stands up again and says:

Seriously, why do we have heaven guns? I don't mean to be that guy, I'm happy here, but why is this not an issue?

I love this scene. And I think the thing I love most about it is how I can identify with the "that guy" angel. I don't know how many times in my life I say, "I hate to be that guy, but..."

Like, the guy who complains that the tennis center is too cold, or who points out typos in published materials, or who suggests to the department secretary how to communicate better.

So, yeah, I'm probably too anal and overanalyze stuff, but I like to think that we That Guys provide a valuable service: we say the things that others are too polite to say.

And in the case of heaven guns, we're damn funny.

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