I offer you the Six Stages of Schadenfreude:
Stage One: Elation
In this stage of schadenfreude, it's Your Lucky Day. You e-mail friends and colleagues, saying, "Can you believe what that shitwizard ____ did? There's no way he's gonna get out of this duffel of maggots!"
You consider playing the lottery, or roadtripping to Vegas. You speed to work without your seatbelt on. Naked.
You begin to conceive elaborate plans to celebrate the one year anniversary of this moment in Tahiti.
You send your opponent 20 orders of Mighty Putty, COD of course, with a note that begins, "All the kings horses and all the king's men..."
Stage Two: Paranoia
In this stage of schadenfreude, you begin to wonder if you've walked into a trap. Then you are certain. You are a bunny in a box.
You convince yourself that no one could have possibly done anything as galactically, mind-numbingly, historically idiotic as your opponent did, and that it must all be a Macchiavellian setup.
You tremble, and you blog, waiting for Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers or Karl Rove to burst from your closet and drive a giant American flag pin into your skull.
You cancel your plane reservations to Tahiti, and begin a heroic regime of self-medication. You stage a bout between Molson Ale and tequila to decide where you will move to escape Armageddon.
Stage Three: Maureen Dowd
You violate your sacred oath to never read Maureen Dowd ever, ever, ever again, and find a peculiar and comforting solidarity with her. This is partially due to sympathetic drunkenness, and partially due to the fact that she occasionally stumbles on a point she doesn't then subsequently vomit upon.
You decide to stop drinking (Maureen Dowd keeps drinking). You rehydrate, and ingest enough ibuprofen to allow for original, rational thoughts to form. As sobriety sets in, you are disgusted to find evidence that you just read Maureen Dowd.
Stage Four: More Elation
From your newly rational vantage, you notice that not only did your opponent do something galactically, mind-numbingly and historically idiotic, and not only do other rational beings perceive his action as galactically, mind-numbingly and historically idiotic, but your opponent continues to do galactically, mind-numbingly and historically idiotic things in a seeming effort to obscure the last galactically, mind-numbingly and historically idiotic thing he did.
In fact, your opponent now appears to be in an ever-deepening cycle of self-defeating stupidity only he/she cannot perceive, and from which the only escape are to say Dan Quayle's name three times in succession.
You re-book that flight to Tahiti.
Stage Five: Guilt
It strikes you that if you had done something that galactically, mind-numbingly and historically idiotic, it would really hurt if your opponent seemed as happy as you are right at this moment.
You wonder if you are being insensitive. You consider extending an olive branch, and trying to allow your opponent to save face.
Then your opponent calls you angry.
Stage Six: Fuck 'Em
In Stage Six, or the Fuck 'Em stage of schadenfreude, you accept your blessing in all its abundance, and with it the duty it brings to deal your opponent a Harlem Globetrotter-style ass-whooping and leave him/her broken and humiliated.
You buy popcorn by the barrel.
You have yourself hypnotized to forget the meaning of the word "Uncle."
And you get to work.