I spent a large part of my teenage years
using a certain insult to mess with my younger brother's head. Rather than merely calling him such obvious things as a gimp, a fucknugget, a cross-eyed badger-botherer and so forth, I took one day to calling him something that made absolutely no sense, and had no basis in reality that he could figure out.

I began calling him a 'peeler' at strategic intervals.

Now, he'll tell you that he saw through this ploy right away, greeting it with the casual disdain due someone who's clearly talking absolute nonsense, but in reality it drove my poor brother Gritty (name changed to protect the helplessly confused) to distraction.
"What? Why am I a peeler? What are you talking about?" he'd say, for example.
"That's exactly the sort of question I'd expect from a peeler like yourself." I'd reply.
"Are you comparing me to a 19th century policeman?"
"No, you're just a peeler. Can't you see why?"
"But what do I peel?"
"Gritty?"
"Yes?"
"Don't be such a peeler."
"AAARRGHH!!"

I did this for years (I mean, obviously I took breaks occasionally to sleep, or eat, or do a degree), and the effect was remarkable. For a very long time, nothing wound him up like the word 'peeler'. It didn't even need to come from me after a while; I heard where one of his friends suddenly called him it at a party, and he literally screamed and ran out of the room.

(Obviously, I'd shared my secret with this friend earlier in the day, and put them up to it to fuck with his head. I just like to imagine the scene...I'm nowhere to be seen, he thinks he's safe, and suddenly that word comes out of nowhere to surprise him. I've never been so close to laughing till I was physically sick as when I heard that it had worked.)

Unfortunately, the effect - and how often I could be bothered to use it - diminished over the years, and the whole thing was laid to rest recently when I 'fessed up to him about why I'd been saying it, and the trivial and completely irrelevant circumstances that had made me pick the particular word I was to hound him with for half his lifetime. So that's a closed chapter now, I suppose.

Still, if you're reading this, 'Gritty'?

You're a misty.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 11:32, Reply)