Current mood:	crazy
Entry tags:	define it

Define It: Sarcasm

Sarcasm

Sarcasm—the water that keeps our spirits alive and free of the droll chains of society. It is the remedy to that greatest enemy called boredom—or so it has become.

For example, if you had just had a terrible day and you sit down with your best friend and he or she asks you "How was your day?". You could be plain and save yourself some time by just replying with "It was terrible", in which case you will receive a sympathetic pat on the back and the world can leave you alone for some peace for a change. The only problem there of course is that you know said friend will probably give you a sympathetic pat then, being human and thus cursed with the human desire to hear of all the grizzly details, ask you why it was such a terrible day.

Thus a more elaborate answer is usually in order. Something along the lines of "It was grotesque. I missed my train then the next one was delayed so I was late for work for the umpteenth time and my boss got mad at me and I just might be fired. I didn't have breakfast, lunch was rushed, and dinner looks like a bowl of cold soup". Thus you have satisfied your friend's—nosy and sometimes irritating but endearing all the same—curiosity and everything is well. Only now you have reminded yourself of exactly why it was such a terrible day, making it all the worse.

Therefore, one can only turn to the delightful term of which we have all grown so fond of—sarcasm. All we really want to say is "Oh, it was absolutely wonderful", with so much insincerity packed into the word that even a deaf man couldn't possibly believe a single word of it. Then you can go on to tell them everything you have kept pent up inside your head all day.  "My alarm clock decided to die on me at the most convenient of times, as usual, and the train pulled out just as I was stepping onto the platform. Then some giant rat or something equally mundane made its way onto the tracks and the next train ran right over it, somehow managing to lose that one wheel that has been loose for only the last year and a half. Then of course they had to fix it and it would just have to be the only train going my way. By the time I reached the office my boss had a face like a ripe tomato and I could have sworn there was steam pouring from his ears. He told me it was the nineteenth time I had been late these last wo weeks, which of course is more than is humanly possible, not to mention polite, thus if 'you don't pull yourself together, you could lose something you really need at the moment', a.k.a. a job. Then of course you run off to work because duh that's not happening anytime soon. The papers just had to have piled up three feet high by then and I had maybe half a second to breathe before they swallowed me whole. I could only manage to extract myself from their strangling hold long enough to swallow that disgusting, pitch black brew they call office coffee and something hard and chunky I might have heard was a biscuit but really couldn't have been anything quite so civilized before I was drowning all over again. By the time I could decently leave without endangering my career—when my boss had finally left the building and was no longer breathing down my neck in anticipation—the last train had already gone and, what do you know, I have to walk the two and a half miles back home, only to discover now that the electricity is out and all I have that's edible is this beautiful bowl of cold, slimy, two-day old noodles that'll probably make me sick before the night is out, meaning it'll just be a repeat process tomorrow only with an upset stomach for a crowning touch."

And that, of course, is a far more satisfying rant and will leave you feeling far more accomplished than you have in years.