Confessions of a Recovering Smart-Mouth

When I was a kid my brothers and I loved Mad Magazine. We bought every issue with money saved from paper routes, baby-sitting and lawn mowing and we often fought over who got to read it first. We would wind up all huddled together reading. “Don’t turn the page, don’t turn the page, I’m not done yet!”

One of our favorite features was called “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”. A so-called dumb question would be asked and then a bunch of “snappy”, i.e. rude, sarcastic, and demeaning, answers would be listed. We loved them and tried to think up comebacks of our own. To kids, being able to reply with a snappy comeback feels really cool. It has the unfortunate side-effect of earning a swat or getting your mouth washed out with soap at times but you just have to learn who it is safe to use your newfound powers of wit on.

Satire is as old as the arts. Much of the ancient Greek theater was based in satire and, throughout history, satire has been effectively employed to call attention to social inequities and political wrongs. Satire is usually extremely clever - it had to be if its authors and performers wanted to avoid the noose. (Did I mention that today is the birthday of two of the world's greatist satirists, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift?) Sarcasm, on the other hand, is somewhat less clever and generally falls way short of proving one’s intellect and/or superiority but it is ever-so appealing to kids. Most of us fail to outgrow that.

Most of my life I took a certain pride in being a person who could be counted on for a quick retort. Occasionally I got lucky and my comebacks were witty and clever but more often than not they were just sarcastic and rude. It took me a long time to appreciate the difference. Once I got past the time in my life where I felt inferior, less-than, inadequate, and all those other personal monsters that plague our lives, I began to realize that the things that sometimes flew out of my mouth were often hurtful and, frankly, stupid. I made a choice to stop doing that - at least where it concerned other people.

It’s a tough undertaking to start taking responsibility for your casual remarks, especially after a few decades of cultivating being a smart-mouth. The first thing I had to discern was the difference between sarcasm directed in general as opposed to that directed at people. I had a big epiphany around this a few years back while attending a so-called “comedy club” where the star performer was a guy who stood on stage and ridiculed, abused, and reviled his audience. People were roaring with laughter but, after the first few jabs, I thought the guy was a moron. And I wondered why we were paying to endure this. That night I watched the faces of this “comedian’s” victims and, while most of them were good sports and did their best to play along, once the spotlight was turned to someone else it was hard to miss the flickers of hurt on their faces.

We make a big deal in our society about being a “good sport” and being able to “laugh at yourself” but I wonder why? Why is this a good thing? We say, “oh, don’t take yourself so seriously” and “would you get over yourself?” but those are essentially stupid observations. Most people would do well to take themselves a little more seriously, pay more attention to who they are, what they do and how they interact in the world. Both the world and they would benefit.

I’m trying to give up being a smart-mouth, at least where the feelings of others are concerned. I’ve gotten over all those old adolescent insecurities and it’s time to act accordingly. Besides, I’ve been told that nastiness gives you wrinkles. Can’t have that.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Though I am making every effort to ignore (and delete) the flaming of the unabashedly crass, while still trying to refrain from being a smart-mouth, I want to thank Punk Rock Knitter over at You Knit What? for her comments today on the Anonymous flamers. I agree with you whole-heartedly, PRK - bravo!