My pet peeve

The phrase "playing _____ to my/your/his/her ______". I hate this phrase. I don't even have enough words in my vocabulary (and not to brag or anything, but I have a fairly sizeable vocabulary, which includes quite a large quantity of words that mean unpleasant things) to express how much I loathe that phrase. I have serious doubts about whether people say that idiotic phrase in real life, and if they do, it is only because they have heard it in movies or on television or read it in books and thought that it was a succinct way of saying something, because they don't realize that it STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID.

The first time I ever remember reading this phrase was in that classic of literature, Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Pawn, and although I was at a tense bit in the story when it occurred, I had to stop reading and stare at the sentence in total horror, because why? Why? Why would you ever? Seriously, that was nearly enough to make me stop reading the book, and I would have done it instantly if I hadn't been twelve and had the notion that it was a naughty book.

I have hated it from the first minute I laid eyes on it. It and I can never be friends. Never. Even if Neil Gaiman and Diana Wynne Jones and Alice Walker and Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth Peters and Dorothy Sayers and Mary Renault and Richard Adams and Alexandre Dumas and Rumer Godden and Audrey Niffenegger and everyone signed a big petition in favor of using that phrase, still then I would not like it. Even if it happened in Greensleeves it would be like fingernails on a blackboard to me. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Why can't it just die?

Okay, I thought I was nailing my colors to the mast about Noel, but I was wrong on that point, because I failed to factor into my calculations how much of a jerk Noel later becomes. It's not that Ben gets nicer (although he does), it's that Noel gets more crap. So that doesn't count.

But this does. I am nailing my colors absolutely to the mast. I hate the phrase "playing ______ to my/your/his/her ________". It is the stupidest phrase of all time and never, never, never, never shall I ever use that phrase in a story or in life. Ever. And if I do then you have my permission to hit me really hard with a rolled-up newspaper.