The Last Worders

There are people in this world who absolutely must have the last word. Always. No exceptions. Not even in the lowly trenches of WhatsApp chats. If there’s a conversation to be ended, they’ll be there, standing on the mountain of verbal triumph, typing furiously.

You send them a polite, no-frills message: "Mailed you the invoice."

They respond: "Will check."

If you stop there, so do they. But, oh, if you dare respond with a casual "Thanks," they take it as a challenge.

Suddenly, the chat becomes a tennis match. They lob something back. "It’s for October, no?"

"Yes."

And just when you think it’s over, they slam down their ace: "Thought so." And exit the arena with the smug satisfaction of a gladiator who didn’t spill a drop of blood.

These Last Worders, my readers, are also the masterminds behind one-word emails. You’ll spend hours crafting a detailed message, only to receive a crisp "ok" in return. It’s the literary equivalent of a cold.. deadpan stare.

Take my old manager for instance, a card-carrying Last Worder. One rainy day, his secretary waltzed in to announce that many employees wouldn’t be showing up. "Abu Hamour is flooded," she said, as if sharing the latest scoop.

But my manager wasn’t about to be out-scooped. "Old Airport is flooded. So is Corniche," he declared with the gravitas of a weather prophet. She nodded, momentarily stunned.

Thinking she was free to go, she turned to leave. "Also West Bay," he added, with the finality of someone slamming shut an encyclopedia. His body language screamed, "How dare you out-news me in my own office?"

And it’s not just at work. Last Worders pop up in the most unexpected places.

Years ago, on a driving holiday in Europe, we spotted a moon so large and luminous that poets would’ve immediately started rhyming words with “celestial blob.” The trees and buildings teased us, hiding and revealing it, and we all gasped in collective awe. “Totally worth it !” someone exclaimed.

But our Indian tour-driver, a seasoned Last Worder, had missed it. Did this deter him? Oh no. As our oohs and aahs died down, he threw his trump card onto the table: "I saw it first, before you all."

What now? Had moon-gazing turned competitive while we weren’t looking? Naturally, we challenged him. If he’d seen it first, why hadn’t he mentioned it earlier? "Oh, come on," he scoffed. "It’s just the moon. We’ve got one back in India too. Sheesh."

And there it was ..the last word, perched like a smug gargoyle.

Now, I’m not saying I dislike Last Worders. Heck, I even tried to be one myself recently. I was talking to a fellow designer via chat and decided, just this once, to be the undisputed lord of chat closure. When she said, "Thanks for your time," I replied with a decisive, "No problem. I'll let you know if we can work together on other projects. Cheers."

But she wasn’t done. "It means a lot to me," she typed, breaking the sacred rule of chat endings. I tightened my grip on my digital sword and countered with: "Sure, bye then."

She parried effortlessly: "Have a great weekend."

Oh, you think I’d let her win? "You too," I shot back, feeling victorious.

And then… she sent a thumbs-up emoji. No words. Just the cold, unassailable finality of a gesture.

Not one to be outdone, I retaliated with a namaste emoji and fled the battlefield.

Since that fateful day, I’ve dipped my toes into the waters of Last Wordery. Sometimes I succeed. Other times, I encounter the true masters.. those who’ve been honing their crafty craft for decades. Some days, I’m the bug. Some days, I’m the windshield. And some Sundays, I’m just sitting in traffic, marveling at the sheer audacity of the human need to have the final say.

..

Until I write again .. ha ha ha.