His ego goes up to eleven

Today I left work shortly after I got there.  I received a brief and shaky call from Murray saying her mom had passed away.  It worked out well that we car pooled today.  It gave me a chance to drive her home.  I suspect most people, but especially Murray, appreciate having someone else who can take charge and deal with details at difficult times.  So I got the flights for us and her sister, got a rental car lined up, got the luggage out of the attic so we could pack and drove us to the airport. 

As I was planning things, it became apparent that the service would be on Sunday.  Sunday I was supposed to fly to Cabo San Lucas for a reservation on a boat to dive for a week.  I offered to cancel.  She said that her mom wouldn’t have wanted that.  Which was true.  So I am flying down to drive the newly orphaned sisters from Atlanta to the GA/FL line where they are from.  I will spend Saturday with them and then drive 4 hours back to Atlanta to catch a flight to Dallas to intercept my Baja arrangements. 

I do things like this because I care about Murray, and in turn it causes Murray to believe I am the greatest thing since sliced bread.  This in turn keeps the pressure up on my over-inflated ego.  Sometimes I wonder if there is an objective measure of ego.   What would the units for such a measurement be?  Egons?   I suppose somewhere in some psychology PhD thesis there is a survey for quantifying ego with questions like “How many years has it been since someone made a comment about you that hurt your feelings?” or “What percentage of your friends are smarter than you are?”

Murray sometimes seems in need of a larger ego.  Perhaps someday they will have a pharmaceutical enhancer like Viagra for your ego.  Or perhaps that is what cocaine is.  I suppose there are pros and cons of having a large ego.

PROS                                                                    

Your best friend is always with you.        

You are never “really” wrong                     

You may succeed at things others won’t attempt

You don’t often suffer hurt feelings                                                       

CONS

You may get tired of being with yourself and not have many options

It is possible that you are a horrible person and don’t know it

You may kill or otherwise ruin yourself attempting normal people know you shouldn’t

Others get put off when you wear a large ego in public, like wearing a paisley or a merkin to event that doesn’t call for it.

Perhaps the upside of ego isn’t as good relative to the downside.  Perhaps that is why you don’t have guys in the locker room bragging about the size of their ego.  Perhaps it is best that one keep it in their shorts…