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A few days ago, I watched the entire 5 or so hours of the A&E Pride & Prejudice (so awesome). You know how Mr. Collins is always talking about how condescending Lady Catherine is?

Granted, in truth Lady Catherine meets our current understanding of the word, but at the time, condescension wasn’t an offensive description. Quite the opposite.

In America and most of the modern world, the term condescension is quite an insult. It means that the condescending person seems to think so highly of themselves that they have to lower themselves to our level. And that’s offensive to suggest that we’re at a lower level.

But think of when there was such a thing as rank. A social system where your rank dictated what you could wear, what you could do, your power in society, how you could marry, and so on. In a social system such as that, for a powerful person to condescend to the lower level was the utmost in gentility, kindness, thoughtfulness of those in a lower status than they. Not that it could never be considered an insult- a person of equal or lower rank behaving as though they were condescending from a higher rank would be the ultimate of fools. Which is why we use it exclusively as an insult today- after all, no one is higher than anyone else now. Even the President is the servant of the people- perhaps we should condescend to him?

But the truth of the matter is, we are still impressed by those who seem to truly condescend to us, even if we don’t call it by that word. Now we say “S/he’s just like a regular person” or “They’re so normal!” or “They’re just like us” and count it a compliment. Think of all the stories you hear of someone meeting a really pleasant Hollywood star, a rock god, or famous politician? How about when you work at a company where the boss is just “one of the boys”?

Rank still exists, condescension in the original still exists, but we’ve used it so much as an insult that it can no longer be considered a compliment. It’s just a shame that unless you write historical fiction, even writers are constrained by modern society’s norms. Oh well.

So, in the past few days, I’ve come across some really cute/funny videos. The longest one is about 5 minutes, and the other two are only a few seconds- technically, all three can be watched with the sound off. Your choice.

#1- Surprised Kitty

You’ll probably think that I found this video through DoshDosh’s tweet- you’d be wrong. I actually saw it on Yahoo yesterday, but DoshDosh tweeted the link today at a really good time for me to copy it out saving me time. Soooooo cuuuuuute.

#2- Which Way Did It Go, George?

This cracked me up. Also from Yahoo, I saw my husband watching this vid of a football player (Florida State Lineman), who didn’t move. I don’t know anything about football, so I can’t explain it, but it’s pretty durn funny in my opinion.

#3- What Do Red Foxes Eat?

Yesterday (or maybe it was the day before?) I posted a link to this video. My favorite Make Money Online blogger filmed his 7 year old daughter hand feeding a red fox. Apparently, foxes eat hamburger patties. Pretty, pretty fox.

I have no fewer than 13 mosquito bites. I kid you not.

Seriously, I managed to get through the entire summer season with maybe one or two bites total- until Monday.

Sunday was the first cool day of the summer, and hubs and I went out at dusk to walk around Stauffer Mansion (of which the grounds were turned into a local park), which tends to be a bit buggy anyway. So, Monday I wake up with two mosquito bites on my left ankle. Not so bad. Almost amusing given that they’re the first bites I’d had in months.

And then I woke up Tuesday. Itchy as heck. I now have 2 bites on my left ankle, 5 bites on my left calf, 4 bites on my right calf, and two bites on my left wrist. I thought that it was perhaps happening while I was asleep, but fact is, I cover my butt up even if I’m sweating! And all the bites are below the hem of my capris except for the ones on my wrist.

Hubs has all of ONE bite. I accused him of wanting to use me as mosquito bait when he asked me to take a walk with him tonight.

Now, get this, hubs actually found an article that probably explains why these buggers are all over me, but not him. According to an article on the Wall Street Journal, mosquitoes are repelled by stress. My husband? Psycho stress ball. Me? People are lucky if I even pay attention to them, let alone actually have a reaction.

It may be time to start obsessing over my upcoming jury duty again before I turn into one big itchy ball.