Snark Tales

I have been, from an early age, blessed and cursed by the same gift: my quick wit. For reasons I don't understand, I am able to extemporaneously fire off comic missiles. A lot of it has to do with the way my brain works. I have a tendency to freely associate when I think. People may start talking to me about plans for next week and by the time it's my turn to talk, I'm asking them who comes first in the Brady Bunch theme song. It doesn't make sense to most, but I can't explain every step in the thought process. I also think and speak very quickly. I was constantly getting feedback from my speech teacher that I should slow down. I once had someone tell me that listening to me talk was like listening to a Ramones album. There is something that happens, both when I speak and when I write, that just causes words to tumble forth.

I wish I could say they tumbled forth in a crisp, clean way a la Gabby Douglas. More often than not, they are like awkward teenagers, all akimbo, awkward, angular and uncomfortable. Growing up, I couldn't fling insults back at people quickly enough. I would lie in bed at night forming the perfect response to being called Big Bertha or some other permutation of fat. I also tried too hard; if I get a laugh for telling a joke once, I just kept telling it. I failed to realize that humor is about timing and is susceptible to the law of diminishing returns. I am, to my husband's chagrin, immensely amused by puns and elementary-school types of jokes (Where does a snowman keep his money? In the snow bank.). I guffaw at any play on words; I am not sure why they tickle my funny bone, but they do. I am a very kinesthetic laugher, too. This I attribute to my father. I remember, going back to a young age, sitting two floors down from him and hearing him pound his feet on the floor and laugh. I was the one at slumber parties that had to be shushed. I laugh as much as I cry--for those of you who know me well, that's quite a bit.

My kids and I have been watching Despicable Me a lot lately. There is a scene where the girls deliver cookies to Vector. They have an exchange with him about his wardrobe. The girls are convinced that he is wearing pajamas; he tells them, incredulously, "these are not pajamas, this is a warm-up suit." I don't know why, but Bekah, Jeremy and I have been performing that scene of the movie multiple times over the past week. I am not sure if I am laughing because Jeremy has even perfected the noises Vector makes, or if I am laughing because Jeremy and Bekah can do the scene together so perfectly or if it's really the first time we've all together performed a scene together. In any case, I am still giggling about the scene in the movie and their rendition of it.

Brian and I have also, since we met, laughed a lot together. He is a ham who loves to have people laugh at him. One of the first things about him to which I was attracted was his sense of humor. There is a lot of joke recycling that goes on; this was not covered in the terms of our marriage agreement. I can now make most of his jokes for him before he does. He covers a lot of ground about daily activities and sex. For example, if I say I'm going to put a load of laundry in the washer, he'll say "I'll put a load in." Ditto for the dishwasher. If I say I'm going downstairs to get water, would he like some, his response is, "oh, I'll go down." And on and on, just like that. Someone like me, who is comforted by routine, appreciates that I can set my watch by the jokes I know he'll tell.

We also have this (I believe) unique ability to joke even when we're fighting. A few weeks ago, we were having a heated argument over something--probably money or family, two of our heavily repeated fights. It escalated back and forth with various accusations of asshole versus bitch. The climax is, of course, him threatening to leave. I will say, as an aside, that I used to get panicked about this threat. Time has shown me it's not something over which I should lose sleep. I should also mention that Brian loves cough drops. He has had several sinus infections over the past year and owing to his voice being used so much for work, they are indispensable to him. So we're having this fight, about God knows what, and he threatens to leave. I am following him to the door to continue to hurl words at him when he stops, turns and heads for the cabinet where he keeps his cough drops. I am still furious, but it tickles me. If he were really serious about leaving, he would have stormed out, gone to CVS and bought more. That's just a no-brainer. I decide to call his bluff; I know, in his youth, he threatened to and did run away from home. In those instances, he collected his few prized possessions in a blanket and walked out. And that's the thought I have as he goes for the cough drops. I make the observation that he should pack a little blanket and put a stick through it. The image of that coupled with his age and stature make me giggle. Let it be known that we are both stubborn and obsessed with being right and/or winning arguments. We will frequently augment reality just to stick to a point we refuse to concede is incorrect. That being said, he was not going to stop his course of action. He absolutely was going to storm out of the house.

Weeks later, we can laugh about that. There is also a time where I was leaving and I asked him to hand me my purse. He was about ten steps away from me and threw it at me. As God as my witness, the purse sailed, completely upright toward me, hit the wall next to me and fell on it's bottom. I couldn't replicate that for the life of me, but we still giggle about that. I even remember lying on the couch in our condo, shouting insults at him and just starting to laugh as I heard how ridiculous we sounded. This ability to laugh at things over which others would cry is a wonderful thing.

There, is, however, a dark side to this gift. I am also able to tear people to shreds with my words. I have the unique ability to sense something about which a person is vulnerable and then eviscerate them, leaving their fears hanging outside of them like entrails. I have reduced people to tears. I have said ugly, ugly things to people I love the most. There is something infinitely satisfying about turning on my heel and walking away from someone licking their wounds. I enjoy the fact that I can construct sentences out of thin air. My wheels are always turning, even when I'm asleep. I wake up with a bitter taste in my mouth, the result of a venomous dream evaporating in my mind. It is an ugly black cloud of hate that swirls out of me and there have been many times I wished I could suck it all back in.

I don't find a need to use this dark side very often. I do, though, struggle with keeping it in check. I believe that every joke has some basis in reality. I do have an uncanny knack for reading people's weaknesses, and luckily the censors in my brain are constantly working overtime. I have a smart remark ready for almost every instance, but I am grateful that I sometimes bypass that for a more empathic one. It's a tough thing, sometimes, because it's a way of righting wrongs for me. I fight much better with words than with fists. It does seem odd that someone like me, who has experienced the full force of a verbal evisceration, would be so good at it herself. I will chalk it up to being a tool of self-preservation.

I am glad that, despite the turmoil and tribulations my family has been wading through, we are a family that laughs out loud together. My hope is that when my kids grow up, they'll only remember the laughter.