Romantic comedy. You Got Mail. Guy says to girl, “wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could pass all my zingers to you? And then I would never behave badly and you could behave badly all the time, and we’d both be happy. But then, on the other hand, I must warn you that when you finally have the pleasure of saying the thing you mean to say at the moment you mean to say it, remorse inevitably follows.”
Well Kathleen Kelly, I too wish that I could say what I want to say when it I want to say it to whom it may concern’s face. But I’m not that brave. My tongue may be able to dish out one or two quick retorts, but I don’t not trust it to hold its own after about ten seconds of exchange, and where am I then? Six feet deeper than I started. Even if my remark is a success, I can't stand the idea of making someone dislike me. You can inherently hate me all you want, profile me, judge me, think I’m weird, that’s between you and yourself inside your head, but openly plant malice in a relationship with another human being? That’s harder to swallow. Although… a spoon full of sugar DOES help the medicine go down. Sarcasm. Sarcasm is the little loop-hole in this predicament that lets you express exactly what you want to say without the guilty emotions that come with saying it. Even better, the receiver of sarcasm often can't comment on your remark without sounding totally irritable or on the rag (“don’t YOU take that tone with me”). What tone? :D
But most of the time my sarcastic comments are muttered under my breath or clearly vocalized when alone. The younger Kaitlin used to argue with her parents about emptying the dishwasher or the trash but as time went on realized how tiring, draining and unproductive it was. So later on when I was told to do something I didn’t want to do, I said yes, got them off my back, then usually forgot the chore and suffered the wrath of parental disappointment instead. I blame dirty dishes with my current struggles of defending my points of view. That is when I have them. Most of the times issues seem too trivial to argue about. The French philosopher Voltaire said, “ I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” My philosophy seems to be, “ I’ll talk if I agree with what you say, but if its different I’ll definitely be dead before I get to say it.”
Sometimes a zinger, dis, insult, slam, retort, whatever you want to call it, simply fells good to say. One specific memory comes to mind where I got a second chance to say exactly what I wanted. I was walking from my car into the grocery store. Near the entrance to the left of where I was heading was a group of 12 teenage boys. The fact that they were hanging out at a grocery and radiating the “we’re too cool to know what to do with ourselves” vibe I assume they were ninth graders. As I approached the store I prepared myself to expect some sort of remark, because stupidity always flows from the previously stated vibe. I was right, as I walked past then one or two of them cat called and whistled at me. Its sad that that’s what I should except being a 19 year old girl, alone, walking past pubescent idiots.
As I got the first item on my list a perfect retort came to mind. And oh how I was mad I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Give them a piece of their medicine. It wasn’t that it took a while to think of, in fact it came to me quickly after I asked myself what I would have liked to have done, but it was the fact that I was only able to think of it until after the pressure and reality of saying it was gone. Twenty minutes later I walk out of the store with groceries in hand and hear the same degrading whistle being blown in my direction. I turned and faced the group of boys maybe 30 feet away, looked at the whistler and said, “You whistling at me? I'm surprised cuz by the looks of you, I thought you were gay.” Bamm! I attacked his manhood in front of his friends. The hilarity of my comeback triggered laughter that then turned into taunting “ooooh” s at the boy. I kept walking and heard him yell “blah blah blah blah…stupid girl…bitch.” After the initial stock of having a stranger cuss me out and dismay of no more planned responses my lips curled up in a smile. Swearing: the single last resort for the desperate soul when attempting to offend. I just kept walking to my car got in and drove home. I won. And didn’t even feel bad about it, take that Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly.
