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As Mr. Get Off My Lawn, champion of the aged, cheer-challenged male, I often get asked if I have any enemies – a nemesis, if you will. As a matter of fact I do. My arch-enemy is a creature, so vile, so foul, so icky that it boggles the mind. This villain is simply known as Mr. More-Importanter-Than-You.

One minute, he might be parking his car – over two entire parking spots; the next he could be miles away asking a policeman, “Do you know WHO I AM?” All of a sudden, out he pops at a drive-thru restaurant across town trying to finagle free food because his itty-bitty feelings are hurt. Zoom! There he is in a rickshaw in New York’s Chinatown yelling at his ‘driver.’ Nearly simultaneously, he has a hangnail in an ER in Anchorage, Alaska demanding to see the hospital CEO. Sightings soon place him in a principal’s office in LaPlace explaining in great detail how his child is special, not understood by the teacher and just doesn’t know how to lie. So apparently, the varmint is able to move near the speed of light.

However, other things can make this scoundrel even more confounding. He is an absolute master of disguise. I might be trying to drive down a street, when BAM, there he is – a middle aged man with a beard in his station wagon, talking to someone whilst blocking the very center of the road, and he’s not letting me get around him. I decide to concede this duel to Mr. More-Importanter-Than-You, I turn my car around, and I take an alternate route in the opposite direction. After coming to a four-way stop sign, I begin to move forward, when BAM. Here he comes again, in a different car, dressed like a lady, with a beard shaved and a bad dye job, having put on 40 pounds and a double chin. Talk about “Dude looks like a lady!”

When I am almost at work, I prepare to make that final right hand turn into my parking lot, when BAM. My nemesis attacks with one final blow, now disguised as a young teenage gender-fluid social media influencer with multi-color, thatched hair and just one too many piercings. The double chin and about 100 pounds are gone, and there is a hint of facial hair. My mortal enemy, glances down at its phone, slows its walking to a crawl and changes its angle of approach to enable the longest possible time to block my vehicle.

I am simply in the pursuit getting to work and perform my second greatest talent, which is entertaining you lovely folks. None of you know me well enough for me to perform my greatest talent for you. Consider yourself lucky.

If you have not encountered Mr. More-Importanter-Than-You, you should also consider yourself luckier even still. Because he is everywhere; he is everyone; he has even tried to use his psychic mind control (one of his other powers that I just made up) to become me a time or two (or three). The only person who can ever vanquish him is himself.

Gary Wayne Dupré is enjoying his second career as the Administrative Assistant for L’OBSERVATEUR and can be reached at gary.dupre@lobservateur.com or (985) 652-9545. He’s an old man, so STAY OFF HIS LAWN!