Several years ago after we’d just finished up college, my best friend got an assistant manager position at a mall store to help pay the rent. The job was ok, but she had this one nightmare employee who just made her life hell. Typical nightmare employee BS – mouthy, big attitude, disrespectful, total lack of responsibility. If I remember correctly, she was BFF with the manager of the store which is how she got the job in the first place. ‘natch.
Well, one day this nightmare employee left the store unattended to go hang out with her girlfriends in the food court.
And naturally, she was fired.
This nightmare ex-employee immediately blamed my friend for her being fired of course. It had nothing to do with the unattended cash register and wall-to-wall shelves of pocketable merchandise. In her fury, she decided to take her revenge against my friend like some honest-to-god supervillain.
The next day when my friend left for work, she discovered her car had been smothered in Crisco and frozen peas.
CRISCO AND FROZEN PEAS, PEOPLE.
In the middle of the night, this villain was down there gooping up her hands with fat fistfuls of Crisco, ripping bags and bags of frozen peas open with her teeth, and sprinkling them across the Crisco like confetti.
“MAUAHAHAHA I AM TOTALLY GOING TO SHOW HER. SHE’LL RUE THE DAY SHE EVER MESSED WITH ME.”
That night we had our very own neighborhood Wiley Coyote with her ACME frozen produce, twirling her mustache.
And even crazier yet, this girl must have sat down and been like, “How can I get her back for wronging me? OH MY GOSH. I know what I’m going to do. But first I’m going to need a giant can of Crisco and four bags of frozen peas. TO THE ACME GROCER!”
(In my mind, everything this girl said or did was in all caps.)
A trip through the local car wash pretty much erased the lingering “Muahahahas” and we all laughed till we about peed ourselves. Best. Story. Ever.
The lesson here is that most villains are not Lex Luthor. They aren’t planners or schemers. They’re emotional heat-of-the-moment bad guys with a grudge or a greed. They want to hurt someone or they want to gain something, but mostly they’ve got about ten bucks in pocket change and a healthy fear of getting caught.
And that’s ok. Not all villains are out to destroy the world or take over the moon or organize a new interstellar slave trade or become Emperor of The Universe for Always Times Infinity*. Sometimes they just want to get revenge on someone who made them feel bad about themselves or fulfill some need that has otherwise eluded them.
As the Crisco and peas girl taught us, sometimes the more emotional the villain’s motivations, the better the story.
*Besides, this is my title.
