The thing that immediately pisses me off is that people assume I have a hero; like it's a prerequisite to being admitted into the conversation. If I'm in a joking mood, I might say something off the wall like Sam Kinison or Joseph Stalin; only because everyone who asks "Who's your hero?" is looking for the Mother Theresas and MLKs of the world.

In more serious conversations, I'll blatantly explain that I don't have a hero. Why? Because nobody on this planet deserves that much respect from me. A hero, by definition, is someone whose personality or actions you admire and agree with completely, in spite of their inherent flaws. Common qualities of a hero include high wisdom, open-mindedness, strong moral beliefs, a penchant for justice, a charitable and selfless demeanor, etc. Does this sound like anyone on the planet Earth? I didn't think so.

In order to piss more people off, I have outlined common responses to the hero query and why their answers are wrong. If you disagree with anything that follows, you are an idiot:

	Mahatma Ghandi
	Ghandi was a pacifist. His accomplishments can best be summarized as "rolling over and taking it up the ass." If everyone in the world wasn't a walking vagina, his "civil disobedience" approach to protesting would have been as short-lived as a candle in a hurricane.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr., or MLK for short, was a Ghandi-poser. He wanted to be like Ghandi so much that he even forsook security, putting himself in a position where an assassin could kill him. If your idea of a hero is a moron who thinks less about security than a Fundamentalist thinks about, well, everything... do the world a favor and kill yourself right now. One more thing: What are the odds of him advocating Civil Rights if he wasn't born black? Exactly; he was in for his own self-interest.

	Rosa Parks
	Rosa Parks, much like her good friend MLK, was an advocate of her own self-interest. She fought for civil rights and womens' rights and people look up to her for it... and she was a black woman. Go figure.

"Mother" Theresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu)

Often called "the infallible" by people who search for counterexamples when I challenge their hero worship, Mother Theresa was a rare entity indeed: Not only was she charitable, but she was a charitable Catholic, too! What fault could I possibly find in her? How about the fact that she was a sadist who obsessed over suffering? Or maybe the fact that her charities rake in millions of dollars yet keep the recipients of the charity in a state of constant poverty?

Some Unimportant Family Member

If the idiot in question doesn't name one of the previous losers, they will inevitably mention an unimportant family member who did something unspectacular that had a minute impact on their lives. Snore. This is the most common response, and also the least creative. Even if said family member actually did something heroic, their deed is insignificant in the grand scheme of things so I don't give a rat's ass. And neither does anybody else.

If you're still convinced about your hero, feel free to send me an annoying e-mail so I can print it out and hang it on my wall next to my High School discipline referrals (soon I'll have an entire wall filled up).