I lost a friend today, but, for the most part, it was not
my fault. I ran into her as she was walking towards the computer store with her
lap-top. She saw me, smiled, gave her lap-top an angry tap and said, “Guess
what I broke again?” I, of course, immediately replied, “your low-carb diet?”
She is at fault in this situation for two reasons: 1. oversensitivity and 2.
asking me to play some sort of devious guessing game in which I wasn’t really
supposed to guess at all. Yet, she has the nerve to be angry with me. I’m sure
she handled it fine, calling up her girlfriends and eating a half-gallon of Ben
and Jerry’s (Coffee Annan or Jesus Pieces or some crap) while tearfully watching
Bridges of Madison County and menstruating.
Don’t ask me to guess something unless I have full freedom
to actually guess. And you know what makes me want to skin a harp seal and
suffocate you in its pelt? Rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions like
“wuddaya think of that?” or “who would have guessed it?” or “why did you kick me
so hard in the crotch?” drive me crazy. If you talk like that, I suggest
dusting off that fifth grade grammar book and flipping to the lesson called
“Unnecessary Question Marks are for Pussies” (it is right after “Ellipsis: The
Period’s Menage a Trois).
These rhetorical devices lead me to my point. My point is
that I bought an awesome trucker hat the other day that says John Deere on it.
You might not get the joke. See, I am an educated, successful, Northeastern
liberal, not an ignorant conservative hick who might actually drive a truck or
purchase farming equipment. Get it? It’s my keen sense of ironic humor derived
from the fact I am too hip to actually wear something like that. It’s funny
because you wouldn’t expect it. Like a non-asshole wearing a Yale sweatshirt.
See, here is the problem with your “ironic value.” For me
to appreciate it, I have to actually care about you, which I don’t. I have to
understand who you are because your humor is only about you. I bet you
have a Web Diary. I bet that behind your smile, you’re actually crying and
dying inside and that, behind my stoic countenance, I’m laughing at your death.
We need to stop trying to understand and care about each
other because, really, none of us are worth the effort. The problem with
trucker hat guy is that he loves himself so much that he finds humor in
showcasing who he is by condescendingly emphasizing the opposites. I, on the
other hand, hate myself and try to showcase other things that I hate by dragging
them down to my level of misery. I don’t think I’m better than trucker hat guy
or the actual redneck whom he is mocking. However, that doesn’t mean that I
wouldn’t love to see that toothless truck driver hopped up on methamphetamine,
Schlitz, and the sperm of Tanyanita, the 6 foot 5 woman he met in a New Jersey
rest stop off I-95, careen his 18-wheeler through the doors of a Built To Spill
concert thus crushing faux trucker hat guy and also opening act Guided by Voices
beneath its massive wheels.
This imbecilic, personalized, “ironic” humor is a direct
result of thinking about ourselves too much. Or possibly fetal alcohol
syndrome. People who need to “get in touch with their feelings” or “take a
little introspective me-time” or “analyze their syzygy and mana to understand
their Jungian archetype of the collective unconscious” should be beaten about
the face with their massive collection of Get Up Kids records. When someone
tells me they aren’t sure what they’re feeling, I grab their hand, put it on my
crotch, and say “feel this.”
Of course, some blame needs to be put on parents. If you
encourage your kid to always talk about her feelings, she’s going to end up
wasting everyone’s time with her crappy slam poetry. When I was six years old I
said to my mom, “Mommy, I feel sad and I don’t know why.” She put me on her lap
and said, “Aaron, look at this picture.” “What is it, Mommy?” “This is your
Bubbe Tzeitel’s shtetl being burned down by the
Czar, sweetie.” I didn’t quite understand, but I stopped complaining about
being sad.
Irony is no longer clever or
funny when it becomes a tool to project your image. If you are going to show
how much you hate corporate sissy rock by wearing a Matchbox Twenty T-shirt,
then you can’t stop there. You need to go to Mandy Moore movies, and rodeos,
and Klan rallies. If you are wearing a belly-bag with a picture of Menudo’s
original line up on it, I have no problem with punching you in the mouth. If
you then tell me that the bag is an ironic statement, I have no problem punching
you harder for misleading me in the first place. If you don’t want me to guess
what you broke again, don’t tell me to. If you don’t want me to answer your
question, don’t ask it. And if you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t
wear the T-shirt that’s asking me to. Or, just stay away from me. Like
everyone else does.