I, Scooter Burch, on this day of Friday, April 19th 2002 vow to (at least for one week) not be sarcastic in any way. This includes being sarcastic in both spoken and written word. I will not pepper my speech or writing with blatant sarcasm, nor will I add sarcastic over- or undertones to anything I do or say. Every time I am sarcastic, I will add 5 cents to the Sarcastic Kitty.
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| Well...where
to begin? I have a tremendously crappy administrative job at Harvard University,
a job that entails babysitting 300 undergrads and 50 professors. On this
particular time of the year, I have to schedule the seniors' honors oral
exams. This entails finding times when one student can meet with 2-3 professors
in a 4-week time frame for 2 hours. There are 80 students this year and
160 professors. "So?" you ask. This doesn't sound that difficult.
Add to the mix that EVERYONE thinks he or she is special, and deserves special
treatment. Everyone's schedule is more important than everyone else's, so
basically I am scheduling egos, rather than time. Why the swearing off sarcasm?
Because I have OD'd on it. Here is a sample conversation I had with a student's
roommate the other day (all names have been changed to protect the innocent):
Me:
Hello? Is Buford Eldridge Higginbottom the 17th there? It was downhill from there. One professor with whom I talked didn't want to tell me what days he was free to schedule an exam. "Do you realize what a busy person I am?" he said to drove home the point. It's going to be a long 4 weeks. |
| DAY ONE: I already slipped once. I was informing a professor which professor she would be giving an exam with. It turns out she (the nice one) was going to be pared with Prof. Fishbaum, one of the most sarcastic, irritating souls ever to teach at this university. Sure, he may be a brilliant scholar or something, but when it comes to interacting with humans, he fails to receive honors. I couldn't help ending the announcement of the nice prof's pairing with a hearty "that should be fun." Perhaps I should raise the fine to 25 cents. |
| DAY TWO: My boyfriend is a bad influence on me. He always speaks in a pronounced sarcastic tone, and I feel that I have to be sarcastic back. He thinks I abuse my cat because I feed her dry catfood, rather than the smooshy kind that's bad for their teeth. I feed her the tinned kind once in a while as a special treat! It's just that it's like crack to her, once she gets it, she turns into this insane dope fiend and begs and begs until she gets another Fancy Feast hit. So Andrei said, "you should use the money to feed your poor, starving cat." "Oh, she's really deprived," I answered. *sigh* there goes another hard-earned nickel. |
| DAY THREE: I tried to break up with Andrei, and the resulting argument resulted in much temptation to sarcasm. However, I think I overcame these temptations really well! The only sarcasm I caught myself at was when I was watching the Simpsons with my friend Pete later that night. he had complimented me on the Rise Krispie Treats I had made, and I said "they're my great-grandmother's recipe." Is that sarcasm? Probably. There goes another 5 cents. At least it was a vaguely humorous statement (and I stress vaguely). |
| DAY FOUR:
NO sarcasm yet today!! OK, it's only 6:30, I still have a few hours
until bedtime, but I don't see any sarcasm on the horizon! Have I finally
cured myself? I even had this letter from my stepdad:
Scootron,
I'm
having trouble picturing you as a non-ironic non-sarcastic individual.
You mean to tell me that you will soon be resembling the openly affectionate
vegetarian spiritual seekers who inhabited Annie Burns' "Singing
from the Heart" vocal workshop all weekend? Annie hired
me to be the 'staff accompanist' for the workshop and I had to join
in with all the Sufi chanting and songs about universal peace and love.
Well, I did it, and I actually enjoyed it. Maybe I was
only getting off on all those cute women being instructed to look into
my eyes and sing about how we're all brothers and sisters, but whatever.
If I can do it, so can you. OK, so now we're both
going to be post-ironic neo-romantic people. I'll try not to be
an "enabler" of your sarcastic side, while knowing full
well that neither of us will be any fun anymore.
The temptation to answer sarcastically to this letter was indeed great, yet I refrained from any snide comments! I want to clarify, though, I didn't say I was going to cut irony out of my life, just sarcasm! There's a difference! |
| DAY FIVE: I only paid 10 cents to Sarcasma, the Sarcastic kitty. Fitting, too, because the being that I exerted sarcasm towards was my cat. My poor, innocent cat! What kind of monster am I, that is sarcastic to a cat? Well, it was early this morning, and she was attempting to drink the milk out of my cereal bowl...as I was eating. "Does that look like cat food?" I asked her. Then I answered, "No. I think it looks like human food." I will make a better effort to be non-sarcastic to both humans and other beings alike. |