Editorial: Sarcasm is Becoming Too Much for Me
Scotto - 2001 November 16
While in the process of ruining this lady's computer and finding out
that a decimal point was the problem, a colleague of mine informed me
that I had not recently written an editorial. He was right!
Friendly sarcasm is great. It allows you to bury your true feelings
under a subtext of false antagonism. There is really nothing else like
it.
Exactly.
Now, as long as everyone is sarcastic all the time, the world would work
great, and earnest replies would be met with confusion and uncertainty.
But since only about half of the people I talk to employ constant
sarcasm, it's very hard to understand what anyone is saying anymore.
Especially if a terribly sarcastic person takes a turn towards unabashed
honesty for a brief moment.
If God were to be sarcastic all the time, I think we would have a great
time. If we could talk to him. Where is that guy, anyway? I'd like to
have a word with him. He'd probably smite me and then put me upside
down in my grave with my legs spread. It would give a new meaning to
the term "spinning in his grave". He would do this because he wouldn't
understand my sarcasm.
Previously this train smelled like strawberries. The smell came from a
man's back. Now it smells like urine. That's certainly a turn for the
worse, but this one German guy over here keeps smiling now.
I bet in Europe there is less sarcasm. Can anyone verify that? At
least in the countries where men kiss men.
Jesus, now the train smells like oranges. I swear. This is some shit
right here. I think a fruit vendor went mad in this car before we got
on. There's no other explanation. I hate to imagine what comes next in
the strawberries-urine-oranges equation. Can anyone check into that? I
don't think Euclid could graph that. The mad fruit vendor could. It
just goes to show that math is universally applicable.
I'd like to say that I'm done with sarcasm for good, but really I'm
lying. I think sarcasm is like the oil that suffuses society's
crankcase. You could operate the crankcase without the oil, but it
would be noisy and onerous. So maybe sarcasm is the lack of oil, and
good heartfelt expressed love of your fellow man is the oil. Hence, for
my analogy to work, you would have to be with Greenpeace. Then you
would get what I am trying to say. [1] Unless you are Fiona Apple. [2]
Finally, having deteriorated to nonsense and footnotes, I bid all of you
adieu.
Next week's editorial:
Why I Find "Dipping Sauce" a Common Misnomer
[1] What I am trying to say is this: You being with Greenpeace means
you have no desire to see a crankcase suffused with oil, let alone
anything else. So you would get in your trusty battery-operated car,
glad you don't have a crankcase, imagining that even if your neighbor
had a rancorous crankcase in need of oil, you would tolerate it, because
the oil companies are evil.
[2] In this case, you would make gradually more revealing music videos
as you gradually became more emaciated. Then you would forbid me from
eating meat. You would not know what a crankcase is. You would not be
reading this editorial. You would find my analogy highly irrelevant.
[3]
[3] I can only assume you find my analogy irrelevant, dear reader, and
my footnotes annoying. Therefore, I can safely assume you are Fiona
Apple. So if you don't eat meat, could you at least beat it? [4]
[4] That was a toned down sexual reference combined with a Michael
Jackson reference. I have no idea what I'm doing.