Wow. A guy accidentally murders his father and has sex with his mother a few hundred times, and all of a sudden he’s got a “complex.” Super cool, thanks everyone! As if my life didn’t suck hard enough, now it’s taught to college freshmen.

You realize that I was extremely proactive in trying to circumvent my fate, right? I left my hometown, Corinth, where my life was devoid of murder and incest, and moved to that sloppy cesspool, Thebes. (“Thebes” sounds like a skin disorder or a venereal disease.) I answered a riddle posed by a Sphinx—and, sure, you armchair riddlers can call it easy since you already know the answer. It’s different under the freaky, white-hot gaze of a half-lady, half-lion, half-bird. A lot of people died trying to answer that riddle! Not this guy. I guess you could say I’ve got a bit of a complex when it comes to outside-the-box thinking. Someone put that in a play.

Like, I tried really, really hard not to be a homicidal pervert. I made several trips to see that hack, the oracle at Delphi, then consulted a local seer (idiot), both of whom knew my whole deal but refused to spill the disgusting beans. Honestly, I have no idea why anyone visits the oracle. Just lie, lady! Would it have killed you to lie? Because telling the truth killed my parents.

If she’d told me anything else, I could have avoided the whole, you know, thing. Instead, she had to pull her little strings, shuffle her little chess pieces around the board, and now I’m the Guy Who Killed His Dad and Screwed His Mom. Oracle or not, if you care THAT much about being right, you have some serious issues (perhaps even…a complex?!?!).

I just feel like if you do something by accident, you shouldn’t have a complex named after you. Nobody thinks that the captain of the Titanic wanted to drive into an iceberg, or that deep down, the Portland Trail Blazers wanted to pass on drafting the greatest basketball player of all time. But ole Oeddie makes a couple minor missteps, a few infinitesimal errors in judgment, and now he’s King of the Sickos. As a Greek man, it’s hard not to feel like race is a factor here.

For the record, I didn’t even enjoy the sex. I feel like that should count for something. (Also, my dad had the most extreme road rage I’ve ever seen, and I live in hell.)

“It is the fate of all of us, perhaps,” Freud writes, “to direct our first sexual impulse toward our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so.” Project much, creep? I never dreamed about any of that, and when I realized what I’d done, I tore my eyes out. I wasn’t like, “Mission accomplished—my daughters are my sisters.” I was pretty bummed!

If you jerks insist on naming a complex after me, though, I’ve got some suggestions for alternative definitions that would make a lot more sense:

  • A super well-intentioned leader who is led astray by the DISASTROUS advice of ostensible psychics
  • Someone who excels at answering riddles in high-pressure scenarios
  • Literally anything other than the current meaning, I’m begging you

Okay, now that that’s settled, can we change my name to something that doesn’t mean “swollen foot”?

Seriously, what the hell?