How to Survive the Modern World as a Sarcastic Individual


I am going to attempt to write this without everything coming off as a rant, and I am going to try to steer clear of the hypocrisy-of-the-world-is-designed-to-destroy-me-and-only-me narcissistic angle. However in this day and age, where people preach to “be yourself,” and “never change for anyone,” and “we are all tolerant of everyone else,” basic love general humanity, it is very difficult to get by and get along if you are simply dead honest.

Although I cannot pinpoint the exact moment I was overcome by this social disease, I recall being roughly four and learning the difference between “technically” and “physically.” For example, when told to go to bed, I would drag my pink footy pajamaed self to get my pillow and blanky and set up on the couch in front of the T.V. claiming, “technically this can be my bed, physically I am not in bed, but technically, technically I am in a bed, mom.” And when told to clean my room, I would smile and inform, “Technically I did,” meaning I shoved all toys under my bed and pulled my duvet down to cover it, “but physically there is need for improvement.”

My grandparents would call me, “fresh” when I refused to go to take cough medicine. They would scold, “Stop being fresh and listen to your mother!” Rather than feel bad and sulk off as intended, in my head was a picture of a potbellied baker and loaves of French bread being pulled from the oven. I heard, “fresh” and thought bread. Maybe if the different uses of the word had been explained then, I would have changed. But I wouldn’t count on that.

Now when you see an adorable little girl with brown curly hair, chubby cheeks, bright bows on her shoes—the works—and she starts talking back, it is the sweetest thing in the world. Fifteen years later, people are slightly less tolerant. By nature, not choice, I am sarcastic—it is who I am, if I censored my speech, I would be hiding myself. Granted, I would not piss of my parents as much, probably get more dates, most likely receive better grades and have the ability to secure myself a solid job, but I would not be able to look in the mirror and find my reflection.


The first time I ever liked a boy, I mean liked, as in beyond giggling and hiding on the playground was in fifth grade. We were forced to sit alphabetically, so the teacher would learn our names, thus I was stuck next to Sid Peterson. This kid lived four houses down from us and was my brother’s best friend; therefore I wanted nothing to do with him.

Nevertheless, within two months I was an addict to his crooked smile and skateboarding scars. Normally half way through the conversation, Sid would have to bring up something about my brother, how he said the funniest thing the other day, or he showed him how to cook hot dogs with a magnified glass, and I would roll my eyes and change the subject.

One day was different, I don’t know why, but it was. By this time I was deep for this kid, or thought I was, anyway. “You’re cool,” he blurted suddenly and blushed slightly in the middle of some coloring exercise.

“What?” I demanded trying to buy myself time because I had no idea how to respond.

This time speaking slowly and confused he said, “You’re…cool?”

As a sarcastic person, I have issues expressing how I feel, while I can be nice and flirt and hint that I have attraction towards a male, I cannot out right say it. When put on the spot to say something, I panic and can no longer pull off the smiling, my face kind of freezes and my mind fills with fun, but bitter, retorts. Things ran through my mind,

“Ice, ice, baby.”

“You’re lukewarm,”

“Shut up,”

“What?!” It’s like I go on auto defense, so I managed to respond with a simple, “ugh you’re weird.” Compared to what I could have said, this was sweet, but he was not anything he desired to hear. Needless to say after that, we had a falling out.



“You have an attitude problem,” the journalism adviser Mr. Elaeb told me. This was the kind of man who had recently reached thirty, but still thought he was hip as a student. He wore these nasty polo’s and had a disgusting soul patch on his chin, which was usually blond, but sometimes darkened. When he talked, Elaeb would stroke and pinch this raunchy tuft of hair, making it hard to take him seriously. He continued, “Now you have a great style and it comes across in your work. You really don’t have to work hard to produce something that others would spend hours on. This makes you cocky and gives off a bad attitude.”

“No--” I started to explain that it was not intentional and that it is something that happens when I open my mouth, but I was interrupted.

“YES YOU DO” he had the audacity to raise his voice, “You have an attitude problem and it is time to start taking care of it.” Seeing that I could not explain to him that I put staples through our editor chiefs’ faces on the bulletin board, only because they pissed me off. Now, if they were competent, then I would not have had to fix all of their pages. The only reason they told me to decorate the bulletin board in the first place was because I told them their pages needed work and that the cover should be finished already. Had the chiefs done their job, I would not have nagged them about not doing it, and they would not have given me something remedial to make me go away. However, Elaeb made up his mind before calling me into the hall, and there is no changing predetermined dogma. So I smiled, said sorry, and went back to class.

What really pissed me off about The Saga, that is my high school newspaper was not so much that everyone made little mistakes like using “there” for “their” and not lining up their picas, it was 1. If I was in their places, I would care a hell of a lot more and try to fix my own mistakes 2. Because of my so called attitude and “attention to detail” rather than be a section editor or chief, I was appointed copy editor, therefore it was my job to pick apart things and tell people to correct them. Now when you are appointed to do something and you do it. Normally people on the other side are supposed to respond, and when your suggestions are ignored, there is really no point in giving them and instead you spend the block playing Tetris. Then when you stop making suggestions and make high score, the chiefs and Elaeb decide that the copy editor should do more than edit for grammar, like say decorate the bulletin board and be coffee maid.

Had I know I was taking senior journalism to be barista I would have taken morning show with Mr. Frasier who is honestly one of the coolest teachers in Connecticut. Nevertheless, I ended up with bulletin board duty and the chiefs ended up with metal through their faces. It’s not like I was out of line or anything.

When I grow bored I have to go to drastic measures to entertain myself. Entertainment editor Marissa was just plain lazy. She liked to smoke late into the school night and sleep in through journalism blocks, so she was on Elaeb’s prissy fit list as well, only she deserved to be there. Basically I laid out her pages and edited her articles, but she received the title. Anyway, I did not hold that against her, because I do not really believe in grudges or such. At heart I am a hippie, I swear. So when Elaeb and the Nazi chiefs launched attack, for we were frequent targets, we would roll our eyes and rant after.

Naturally, when the Saga staff went on a field trip to New York City for Columbia’s media conference, we stuck together through the dull and the irrelevant seminars. It is not so much that the fest was useless, just we ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like when we went to check out a magazine seminar that was all about lit mag’s, and not like Rolling Stone mag’s or when we went to check out some lady with a big name who talked about being a T.V. producer on 9/11. All the speakers spoke wonderfully and very interestingly, however none of what they said pertained to my future plan of not working in the journalism business.

In between seminars, Marissa dragged on cigarettes and we wandered bits of Harlem. On campus, she dropped her cigg butt before entering a building to which some blond lady screeched, “you should pick that up and besides you are a student you should not be smoking anyway!” Now the normal humored person would feel bad or say something, but I suffer from sarcasm, so I cracked up and Mar joined in and we completely ignored her. It was New York, this was a college campus, we were eighteen, if she wanted to smoke she has the right and this lady’s P.S.A. was just as polluting as Mar’s cigg. Not that I support smoking, because I do not, but I support making fun of people who disserve it.

It was a good day and somewhere between sign in and lunch I had picked up The Devils Advocate which, to say the least was a laughable publication. First of all, the phrase is “the devil’s advocate,” with an apostrophe, making the devil possessive of the advocate, rather than many devils. With my purple pen Mar and I passed the paper back and forth scribbling in corrections, like spelling, lack of captions, unclear fuzzy pictures, misaligned margins, run on sentences, fragments, use of first person, you name bad writing rules and they used every single one of them, twice. I felt terrible just looking at it, The Devils Advocate was the funniest joke I had never heard.

Not to be an asshole, but despite our occasional, okay frequent, personality clashes, The Viking Saga was a twelve page publication that we transmitted every two weeks, complete with a front page, editorials, news, features, sports, entertainment and a bifinay. Once a year we did a color edition. We recruited people to illustrate comics. We had someone at every sports game. We were as functional as the New London Day and they would pick up our paper for story ideas, as we did with theirs. Honestly, we did a damn good job, put a lot of work into it, and published a newspaper that was the shit. Therefore, I think that if we can publish something like that every other week, then other schools that publish once a month or twice a year, I think they can afford to use spell check and margin liners. If the Saga had half the problems the Devils Advocate had, I would stay after school for a month and make corrections.

I was not being vicious when I read it, it made me laugh, I pointed to this and Marissa laughed, she pointed to this and I laughed. On the way back to Connecticut, we decided that we should probably send them our marked up newspaper, you know so they would know what to improve on. After all, I was copy editor: it was kind of like my job.

I know everything has flaws, and we should not be perfectionists, but honestly if you cannot spell your own publication’s name correctly, perhaps a priority check is in order. Anyway, Monday morning, I had nothing to do and Marissa was putting off laying out her pages, so basically it was a typical day. I pulled open my e-mail, hit draft letter, and started off, “Dear Devil’s Advocate Staff,” and so it went.

For the record, this was not a solo act, by any means. I picked up the paper originally, yes, but Mar and chief 1 and chief 2 and the sports editor and the news editor and our managing editor laughed along at the paper with me. Managing editor Kyle actually edited the letter I wrote, adding snobby flairs. All in all five of the eight editors had read the e-mail drafted before it was sent.

“You’re assholes,” laughed John the sports editor.

“Is that a joke?” Mia the news editor asked.

“Can we hit send now?” Kyle beamed.

The final letter read as follows, “Dear Devils Advocate Staff, At the Columbia shindig, we had the displeasure of picking up your October 2006 edition and barfing our guts out. After passing the newspaper around our staff, we found it necessary, as good Christians, to help those who are in need of edits. In regards to the “Corner Office Interview” article, what is a corner office? Also, you need to distinguish between the reported and the interviewer, maybe bold or underline. Please take a better picture so that Mrs. Gateway does not look like a fat boy scout. Next, what program do you use? I ask this only because even Microsoft Word has column aligners, so I do not understand why your words go all over the pages. Also, note: variety does not kill, it is okay to have three columns on this page and two on that, text blocks have been known to cause cancer. How often do you transmit? Do you spell check? Are you retarded? Please if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. We are here for you. Sincerely, Mandy & Staff.”

And I hit send.

For the record, I still think my letter is hilarious. However, that does not make it necessary. “I probably just made a big mistake, right?” I asked Mar, she nodded and yawned.

Now that the laugh was over, the whole thing fell out of my mind until two weeks later Elaeb called me out of English class and into the journalism head quarters. I walked in and smiled, “pulling me out of English class, Elaeb, I must be in big trouble.” When he did not really respond my laugh died and I tried to go back through my head everything I did that was really bad over the last week. If I had parked really badly that morning I could not recall hitting any cars or even if he knew that I was letting kids use flippers in the pool although a sign clearly said not to, there was no way that it affected him. My mind was blank. It never occurred to me that sending an amusing little e-mail seven days earlier would be a big deal. Also based on the fact that it was an independent composition that is not pertaining to the Saga I would not have thought it Elaeb’s business. But apparently it was.

“Do you know what the Devil’s Advocate is?” I silently said shit as the color drained from my face. He proceeded to read bits of the e-mail out loud, yell and use what is deemed to be “fowl language.” I took it. When he asked “was anyone else involved?” I said no and that I would go home and draft an immediate apology.

I ran into Marissa in the hall and told her, “Bad news. The advocate e-mailed Elaeb and now I think I’m getting kicked off the paper.”

The next day in class, Elaeb set up a wonderful witch trial, positioning the paper staff around me and reading the letter out loud. When opened up for discussion, Valerie, the junior staff reporter who had chosen herself for chief asked, “I just want to know, what made you do it.” Every editor went up to me and said a bitchy comment about her after. Kyle stood up and said, “I think this is very funny and because it is not directly connected with us, we are not in a place to provide consequences.” Elaeb begged to differ and I was removed from the newspaper staff just before the last quarter of my senior year.

This made my schedule something that kid’s dream about. I had four study halls, with three back to back. I tried to fill my time by internshiping at the Day, but after weeks of persistent calling, I concluded that someone had tipped them off about me.

Most people would be bitter, but as a sarcastic person, I have come to appreciate the irony of life. Although all the pieces I had written for the next Saga were pulled, for the following issue I received a timid e-mail from one of the junior staff reporters. My senior English teacher had given one of those “go change the word” assignments. Each student had to submit a proposal for changing something, and I wanted to install healthy vending machines into my school cafeteria. Well, when asked which papers were newsworthy, my teacher chose mine. My previous colleagues never approached me, just the poor little reporter. I hung the newspaper on my fridge. When it came time to write their final issue, I received once again, a shy e-mail. They wanted to do a piece on seniors going far for college, as I was going to Guam, I won the contest.

They can pull me off the staff, but apparently they cannot keep me out of the news.



One day my mom woke up and decided to be a Steven King fan. There was really nothing leading up to this event, in fact she hated horror movies. As children, my brother and I were not allowed to watch “the Nightmare Before Christmas” because she heard it was too scary. When “Carrie” was on TV, I only was able to watch it in sips when my mom left the room to answer the phone. I pin blame on the librarians she worked with, but that does not cure her.

Anyway, because she was such a fan, she read his “On Writing” and then took every chance she could to encourage me to read it.

Mr. King, if you are reading this, I have nothing against you. In fact, when I was a kid, we lived in Old Town and would drive by your house every now and then. Honestly, it is one of the finer pieces of architecture I have seen, not that I am an expert. Nevertheless, I do not really have a particular interest in reading your work, which probably stems from my mom’s nagging.

Eventually, I picked up the book and read the first chapter of each section, skimming in between and reading the full last chapter.

At dinner she would say, “and have you read the Seven King yet?” I never understood her grammar, because she started sentences with transitions, like we were already in a conversation. Like her thoughts randomly jumped out of her head midstream. “Because there is that part in the beginning about how he was rejected. And how you have to keep on trying and send your work everywhere. And how he wrote that manuscript on making fun of his teachers. And how he got expelled because no one got his humor?”

When I got kicked off The Saga I think part of her thought that it was a sign that I would make it with that writing thing.

“No” I informed her.

“No one gets his humor, even today.” My father chimed in.

“I do,” I cut up the chicken parm on my plate. “Personally, I thought ‘It’ was hilarious.”

“I don’t know what that is” my mom was still in her thoughts on how King did this and how he did that and how.

“His homicidal clown movie, it was a comedy right?” My face was straight and voice sincere.

Although my dad changed the subject immediately, I held my poker look until, to their confusion, I burst out laughing a few minutes later.

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