His Big Fat Ego

From today's Boston Globe, an article on the passions surrounding the Red Sox and Yankees spring training game:

"...emotions came to a boiling point in a stadium parking area, where Yankees publicist Rick Cerrone and a longtime Sox security guard, Dave McHugh, a retired postman from Portland, Maine, had a run-in.

"Do you know who I am?" shouted Cerrone, contending that McHugh had pushed him. "I'm with the American League champion New York Yankees, and you're a typical Boston Red Sox employee."

McHugh said he was merely trying to pass through a crowd of reporters in order to allow some Yankee players who had driven down from Tampa to leave, and that he'd put his hand out, said "excuse me," and gave Cerrone a small push when Cerrone inadvertently backed into him.

Riddle me this: how can anyone allow the words 'do you know who I am' to leave his or her mouth and not immediately dissolve into fits of laughter? Or at least follow it up by announcing 'I'm Moe Green. You don't buy me out, I buy you out!'

The answer? I think you must a rather inflated sense of how important you really are, to be able say something like that and not realize how petty and ridiculous you appear as soon as you use those words.