An ode to envy

So when I was eight years old,

a new girl came to join the class.

She was so impressive,

as the new girl always seems to be.

She had vast quantities of very shiny hair

and a cute little pencil case,

super-strong on state capitals,

just a great speller,

and I just curdled with jealousy that year,

until I hatched my devious plan.

So one day I stayed a little late after school,

a little too late, and I lurked in the girl's bathroom.

When the coast was clear, I emerged,

crept into the classroom,

and took from my teacher's desk the grade book.

And then I did it.

I fiddled with my rival's grades,

just a little, just demoted some of those A's.

all of those A's, and

-- (Laughter) --

I got ready to return the book to the drawer,

when hang on, some of my other classmates

had appallingly good grades too.

So, in a frenzy,

I corrected everybody's marks,

not imaginatively, not imaginatively.

I gave everybody a row of D's

and I gave myself a row of A's,

just because I was there, you know, might as well.

And I am still baffled by my behavior.

I don't understand where the idea came from.

I don't understand why I felt so great doing it.

I felt great. I felt great.

I don't understand why I was never caught.

I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious.

I was never caught.

But most of all, I am baffled by

why did it bother me so much

that this little girl, this tiny little girl,

was so good at spelling?

Jealousy baffles me.

It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive.

You know, we know babies suffer from jealousy.

We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone.

We know that jealousy is the number one cause

of spousal murder in the United States.

And yet, I have never read a study

that can parse to me its loneliness

or its longevity or its grim thrill.

For that, we have to go to fiction,

because the novel is the lab

that has studied jealousy

in every possible configuration.

In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say

that if we didn't have jealousy,

could we even have literature.

Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey."

No jealous king, no "Arabian Knights."

No Shakespeare.

There goes high school reading lists,

because we're losing "Sound and the Fury,"

we're losing "Gatsby," "Son Also Rises,"

we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K."

No jealousy, no Proust, and now, I mean,

I know it's fashionable to say that Proust

has the answers to everything,

but in the case of jealousy, in the case of jealousy

he kind of does, he kind of does.