Humility Smackdown

Curt Har­low just found out that I have pub­licly called myself the world’s #1 speak­er on the sub­ject of humil­i­ty.

In case you were unaware, that’s Curt’s tagline. He prob­a­bly even has it tat­tooed in an indel­i­cate place.

So he called me up, “Glen, you are not the world’s num­ber one speak­er on the sub­ject of humil­i­ty and you know it. That’s my schtick.”

I believe my reply can best be sum­ma­rized as “neen­er-neen­er.”

So we have four options:
1) We can each humbly agree that the oth­er per­son is right. This option is appeal­ing, but I just can’t see Curt going for it.
2) I can apol­o­gize for steal­ing his joke and print up busi­ness cards for him pro­claim­ing his hum­ble sta­tus. I’m sure Curt would pre­fer this solu­tion, but he real­ly set him­self up to be knocked when he start­ed the joke. Jokes are made to be expand­ed, refract­ed, and revised.
3) We can rum­ble. Curt’s big­ger than me, so I don’t plan to pur­sue this course of action.
4) I can call myself the world’s num­ber two speak­er on the sub­ject of humil­i­ty in a tone of voice that implies I know that makes me more hum­ble than the num­ber one guy.

And so I choose option num­ber 4. I am clear­ly the world’s num­ber TWO speak­er on the sub­ject of humil­i­ty and I am hum­ble enough to be con­tent with that rank­ing.