My lovely Uncle Joe always reprimands me for being “fresh” with my mother.
[Just to clarify: When I use the word "fresh," I mean, "This tomato hasn't grown mold yet." When he�says it, he means rude.]
But without sarcasm, I ask you, how am I supposed to respond to bad questions? Observe:
Mother: Laura, are you coming home tonight?
Laura: No, I was actually thinking of whoring myself out and then sleeping on the street.
The question was beckoning for such a response, and this is why: she already knew the answer. Of course I’m coming home! I always do.
Observe also:
Mother: Laura, are you going to walk the dog?
Laura: Actually, I bought a pack of AAs so her electric leash could do it for me.
This would be like asking a bartender what he does for a living while he’s pouring your beer. If you know the answer, then don’t ask. Otherwise, I’ll serve you a fresh one.
So, as you can see, sarcasm is not rudeness, per se.
I like to think of it as a very polite reminder to my mother that she
has, once again, asked a dumb question.
This just in…The Metropolitan Transit Authority has voted in favor of the Jets stadium proposal, accepting the Jets’ $720 million bid for use of the MTA-owned railyard on Manhattan’s Far West Side. This is a travesty on many levels, first and foremost of which is the fact that the Jets are asking $600 million in taxpayer money to fund the building of a platform and roof.
If I’m going to be paying for this monstrosity, I’d like a chance to vote on it. Or, at the very least, I would like to send my City Council Member as a proxy.
For more details, see this article. For a good opinion, see this editorial.
22 responses so far ↓
1 crzyduck // Mar 31, 2005 at 7:40 am
Sweet! sounds like fun!
random props from a very random guy……
2 Didya_evawonda // Mar 31, 2005 at 8:41 am
Politics=bad. The Wild, the Innocent…=good.
3 TobyWillBiteYou // Mar 31, 2005 at 11:34 am
New York has always fascinated me, but I’ve sometimes heard the cost of living is enough to cause spontaneous combustion…. I’m sure that it coincides (at least somewhat) with the payscale…. of course, with whopping tax bills such as that, it may not help that one can make a better income in the Big Apple…. recently, here, (Va. Beach, yo!) the property value has just surged upwards of 20%. Us middle classers are startin to squeal… okay, that’s just me squealin. Everyone else is too shy to squeal out loud! Btw……. my Mom’s computer did, in fact, have some pop up cookies hiding in her computer. Me thinks they’re all gone now. How I long for the days of cookie free computing! Take it easy! HASTA!!! TOBY!!!!!!!!!
4 Ed_Kaz // Mar 31, 2005 at 12:54 pm
rycI totally lied.But it makes for a nice story don’t it?:)
5 rainingheart // Mar 31, 2005 at 12:58 pm
About 10 yrs ago in Washington State, there was a vote given to the people on whether or not the state should fork up X amount of dollars to build the Seattle Mariners a new baseball park. The people voted a resounding NO. So the legislature decided that they would pass their own measure approving the taxpayer-dollar paid park. Now I live in Missouri….
6 TimsHead" target="_blank // Mar 31, 2005 at 2:50 pm
It’s municipal blackmail. In many cases, an owner claims that another city is wooing his franchise, and the city leaders cave. This Jets/Olympic arena thing just strikes me as greed supplanting good urban planning. It’s as if the grizzled, dark spectre of Robert Moses has risen from the dead. Say what you will about Ted Turner, but at least he paid his own money to build a stadium for his Braves. It’s a shame almost every other franchise owner asks the public to build their monuments to ego.Actually I’m triple-blogging at the moment! In addition to being a new Xangan and a LiveJournalist, I also still maintain my original Blogger account. Yeah, I’m a freak. I’ve been dissuading people from the Blogger one, which seems to finally be working. But blogging in three locations dilutes any interplaying of comments. It’s like holding simultaneous parties in three different apartments … it makes it less fun and takes away opportunities for interaction.
7 Gabe_Real // Mar 31, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Freshness = *Lip*-styles.Hahahahahahaha. You so rock! Sarcasm (and happy sarcasm) is such an underrated quality… It shows you truly care… Like I’ve been asked mid-sippin’…Twit: ”Are you drinking that coffee Gabe?”Me: “Nah, I just thought I’d bring the cup… to my lips… you know?”Next time, throw in a look with your eyes like: O.oWhat a travesty… J-E-T-S. Eck.Positive Vibes,Gabe
8 Spank_Me_Beautiful // Mar 31, 2005 at 3:07 pm
thank you. and thanks for tha b-day wishes. yeah, i just turned 15. if u have any poems or stories, i’d like to read them. i love bein able to feel what others write about. by tha way, i like ur style lol.
9 One80_dgrees // Mar 31, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Ya I’m asked a lot of dumb questions too. But of course I shoot back with my unsophisticated “duh”s. :-/~Rivkah~
10 TexasAlan // Mar 31, 2005 at 4:20 pm
Aww, when I was in highschool, I used to tell my mother that I was out whoring on the streets. In reality, I was chain smoking and drinking coffee and listening to the Cure at Denny’s (I’m from a really small town). But, she always did think that I was out there peddling my wares for all those who wanted my services. I never could get her to believe that I was at Denny’s. I had told her so many times that I was whoring myself that she just came to accept the fact as true.
PS…I’m glad I found another supporter of the neuvaring. I am goig to urge all of my girlfriends to go on it. Everyone seems to love it so.
11 pumpernickel_rye // Mar 31, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Whenever G asks me a question like that, I say, “I’m baking a cake,” whether it fits the context or not. It’s lame, but that’s kinda the point. I suppose with questions like your mother’s, you could preface it with “No,…” just to keep it grammatically sensible in some way. Although I’m thinking with the dog question an answer like that may just lead her to expect you really might be baking a cake. Maybe you could come up with another standard response along the same lines, but something that wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her (i.e. the whore angle). Here’s one, tell her you’re rotating your tires. Unless of course you do that as a matter of course anyway.
12 Dyrb2 // Mar 31, 2005 at 5:37 pm
I’m afraid that she will one day forget to ask and you will forget to walk the dog. How sad!
13 derf6179 // Mar 31, 2005 at 6:40 pm
Sarcasm is fun
14 trcs // Mar 31, 2005 at 6:45 pm
“If you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer.”
That’s what my former (very former) bf used to say after I’d give him a dirty look for giving me a smart-ass answer to some dumb-ass question I’d ask. As annoying as it was at the time, I also adopted that response since I, too, am full of sarcastic replies. The key was always the *shrug* and casually adding the “if you ask a stupid question you get a stupid answer”.
RYC: (posted in my March 15th comments) It never even occured to me that random strangers would sign into the guest acct and change the password… oops.I propose you try the guest acct and if that happens, well then you’re just back where you are now - with no guest acct.And grrrrrr to the loser with the mean comment and even meaner e-mail. He just might have his own ass kicking coming to him. I hear that karma thing really works.
15 prettypixie7 // Mar 31, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I have that face (previous post). I call it my “default face”. I wear it often and I get the same response. Whenever I spoke to my mother like that, I had to put out my hands while she removed her slipper and…well you can guess. That shit hurts! Good times.
16 TexasAlan // Apr 1, 2005 at 2:39 am
Sorry! I had a moment of drunken stupor and got confused about who commented on my blog! My apologies!
17 DavisMcDavis // Apr 1, 2005 at 3:33 am
I live in a studio apartment with my boyfriend. Whenever I leave the living room and go into the bedroom, off of which is the bathroom - and nothing else - he always asks, “Where are you going?”
Which always blows my mind, since there’s no exit from the room other than the window, so I usually end up saying something I lifted from the Golden Girls, ”I’m going to milk the cow I keep in our closet.”
18 Gabe_Real // Apr 1, 2005 at 3:42 am
regarding your last comment: WOOOO HOOOO Hope you enjoyed the last video (which has now been replaced with yet anotha’) - which was New Order’s Regret. Positive Vibes and a Happy Friday,Gabe
19 chicagoartgirl23 // Apr 1, 2005 at 4:09 am
Ha! I tried freshness one time and it completely backfired. I was about ten or so and our family was host to August birthdays. My mom and aunt were in the kitchen perapring the meal when I was summoned from my room. “Truly! Do you want to come set the table?” I scoffed, “Well, I don’t want to, but I will anyways.” Before I knew it, the back of my head was buzzing–my mom had wailed off and hit me! “Don’t you ever be a smart ass to me again–do you hear?!” I was mortified. My aunt just stood there, surpirsed as me. My mom’s not abusive or anything–I think she was just uptight from the stress of having my step-dads family swarming the place–but man, I hated her at that moment. I think I ran upstairs crying and locked myself in my closet to invent songs about how much I hated her. (I am laughing right now…) It worked though–I’ve never been fresh again.
20 Jay_galk25 // Apr 1, 2005 at 5:27 am
Sarcasm is my god!
Jay “Rawr”
21 MaximaBella // Apr 1, 2005 at 7:53 am
loved the sarcastic answers…its not being fresh, its called quick witted!
Springsteen looks sexy as hell in your currently listening too pic!
22 My Dog is Chelsea » Blog Archive » I am my mother, and that frightens me // Apr 25, 2006 at 6:06 pm
[...] By Thursday, I had taken to responding, “Really? I had no idea!” in that sarcastic tone I use very frequently with her. [...]