Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Sarcasm: THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEVIL

Pin It That has nothing to do with anything. My visiting teacher said that to me the other day and I've been repeating it ever since, mostly in a highly sarcastic tone.

Apparently I‘ve moved out of sadness and into a really pleasant bitter-against-anyone-who-appears-to-be-remotely-happy stage.

(Of course, I’m not OUTWARDLY bitter, I just smile benignly and hold my feelings back, letting all of that nice toasty rage warm me from the inside. Kind of the same as when you’re really happy, but with more potential for stroke.)

I’m working on an extra freelance project right now, so as to earn a few extra dollars. I’m working late at night on that project and then getting up early to go to my regular full-time job. This means that right now I’m ALSO bitterly jealous of people (including, AHEM, my husband) who are consistently getting 8 hours of sleep at night.

If this is true for you, NEVER, NEVER tell me, because then I will be forced to resent you just on principle (the principle being: I’m tired), and if you ever stay over at our house, you will have to listen to me slamming bathroom drawers shut at 5:30 in the morning, in a series of purely coincidental I-swear-I’m-really-trying-to-be-quiet-so-you-can-sleep-but-OOPSIE-I-guess-I-just-did-it-again type accidents.

(These accidents are somewhat related to the 2AM oh-shoot-is-that-the-button-that-turns-on-my-alarm accident that I sometimes have when I come to bed and see my sweetly snoring spouse.)

(I’m really very accident prone.)

We were going to use the funds from the project to pay off back taxes, but they were diverted instead into our Fun With Cars emergency fund, so the net effect is that we still owe Uncle Sam just as much as we did before, but HEY, on the plus side, we now own a red ’93 mustang convertible that is completely paid for.

On the day that it became clear that we would need to use the money from this project (THAT IS KILLING ME SLOWLY NOT TO BE OVERLY DRAMATIC ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING) to buy another car - WELL. I just knelt down right there and said a little thankful prayer unto heaven, is what I did. My husband had to restrain me from doing a little dance of joy, right there in the driveway.

(If you’re not getting the sarcasm here, then please, COME CLOSER, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.)

My husband swears that the car is no fun at all to drive, since it’s old, and old, and also, Very Very Old, but come on. A red mustang convertible. This cannot be as embarrassing as he makes it out to be, am I right?

Somewhat unrelated: My husband and I are thinking about getting our real estate licenses. Just for an on-the-side type of thing. That probably sounds crazy, considering the market. But I love the industry and know it inside and out. I was an RE agent in Las Vegas for a couple of years, and was an escrow and title manager for five years, so I completely and thoroughly know the drill. And I have to believe that driving people around to look at houses (one of my favorite past-times EVER) would be a much more fun occasional side job than sitting on my couch creating technical illustrations and documenting software codecs.

So listen – next spring? If you’re looking for a bitter, jealous, slightly irrationally exhausted real estate agent? With a totally hot ancient convertible?

You know where to find me.

(You can hardly wait until I get this thing going, can you? I can tell. Man. My phone is going to be ringing off the freaking HOOK.)

PS: I feel compelled to say this: Eventually, when you keep on having financial issues, upon issues, upon issues, at some point, even allowing for a bad economy, and a failed business, and unemployment, and clients who don't pay you, and unexpected medical bills, and bad luck, and God (apparently) hating your guts - even allowing for that, at some point you have to look around and accept that some of your financial wounds are self-inflicted, because you have been JUST A LITTLE BIT of a (sorry Mom) dumbass. It's true. There has certainly been an element of that here.

But we're working on it. We have good jobs. We are roughly subscribing to the whole Dave Ramsey thing (minus the fanatasicm and mystical overtones). We are making very, very, very slow progress, most of which feels as circular as the situation described above, wherein I earn extra money to pay for something and it is instantly used up for something unexpected, like an exploding car, or tires, or a rash of medical bills for a year old surgery that your insurance has decided not to pay for, or, you know, damage caused by frogs falling from the sky. Like that.

But we'll get there.

Or else I'll have a stroke.

One or the other.

The end.

59 comments:

  1. Thank you for that perfect rant. I can totally relate. Also, it is good to know that my mouth is a tool of the devil because I also am guilty of spewing sarcasm in the face of sleepless adversity. Keep on keepin' on.

    P.S. You should at least make him wear a pocket protector and geeky glasses as he drives about in his totally not un-cool new vintage car. I think I'd drop a few things and slam a few drawers at 5 am also! :)

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  2. I don't get it. What's wrong with sarcasm?

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  3. You have a Mustang to drive? I am totally jealous!!!

    Sarcasm isn't of the devil...it is a survival tool.

    If that is what helps keep you sane, then you go with it.

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  4. I totally get the whole tired thing, because I work similar hours to yours.
    It's been my experience that people who speak sarcasm are excessively intelligent. Those who don't like (or don't get) sarcasm are just jealous.
    Why does he get to drive the mustang? I think you'd look totally hot in a cute little red sports car.

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  5. Yeah, I think I would claim the Mustang, myself. And forget about blaming yourself for lousy financial decision-making - why do that when you can blame President Obama? Works for the Republicans...

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  6. And if I just started some huge political flame-out in your comments section, I am sorry. JOKE! It was a JOKE, people!

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  7. if sarcasm is the language of satan, then our family are all a bunch of devils! that is our love language, for sure.

    Can I copy & paste your second to last paragraph and claim it as my own. that's my life story, but sounds way better and funnier when you describe it.

    i love you! and miss you.

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  8. If being sarcastic is wrong, I don't want to be right.

    Sarcasm is my super power.

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  9. What do you mean having no sleep makes you bitter? I haven't slept in almost EIGHT freaking years!! I'm not bitter about it though. Not. at. all.

    Also I am so sick of money problems that any person I see who looks like they "have it easy" in the money department I want to claw their eyes out, and then steal their wallet while their screaming "WHY?! WHY DID SHE DO THAT?!"

    You're description of inner bitterness toasting from the inside: genius. I SO get that.

    I truly am a happy person. Really. Atleast on the outside.

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  10. Well, the good news is that you don't have to sever our relationship.

    And I have no bad news. I'm upbeat like that.

    The mustang is yours. I so decree.

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  11. Oh sweet friend. I'm sorry things are hard right now. Everything I want to say sounds like a cliche, but that is because most cliches have an element of truth. This too shall pass, I promise. We love you and miss you.

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  12. PS: Bring your kids over here next week and you shall have a nap to end all naps, I promise.

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  13. I hope this isn't creepy, but I've been reading this blog for a long time in my mind, you and I are totally friends. You are taking my life and putting it on this blog. Except I just moved FROM woods cross...to an even crappier part of town cuz it's cheaper. Sometimes I go outside and miss the smell of refineries. If I could afford a house, I would totally ask you to be my agent! Thank you for being you.

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  14. Anonymous8:25 PM

    I'm starting to understand your posting schedule. Once a month, right before your period. Am I right or am I right?

    Is it bad that I like you bitter and ranting? It's like seeing my life on the page. I'm so tired. Life is a total grind lately. I ache to be at home with my kids but it isn't possible right now. I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I'm jealous of my SAHM friends even though I love them.

    Thanks for giving it a voice. I hope it gets better for you.

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  15. sarcasm may be the language of the devil... this might work out for me... I won't need to learn another language at least :)

    whatever, if I wasn't speaking fluent sarcasm I would have to take a vow of silence!

    True Story - my son has to "pay the pig" (the sarcasm pig) in his high school guitar class... He always makes sure to have a few quarters with him just in case he has an attack of mom speak.

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  16. Sue, if being sarcastic makes you feel better, go for it! You have been raked over the coals. I can totally relate to the extra money earmarked for something else being sucked up by dumb stuff. I am guessing (cuz I can't be sure) that it's worse than Chinese water torture. I wish I could make it all go away because, at some point, it starts to lose its meaning. Sure, we have stuff and we learn from the stuff and there is purpose to the stuff, and then, one day, it's just pointless and it should go away but it doesn't get a clue. sigh . . .

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  17. If you promise to call your real estate company 'bitter, jealous, slightly irrationally exhausted with a totally hot ancient convertible real estate agency' then I promise to buy a million dollar house from you!!

    You know, sleep deprivation is a form of torture. No wonder most of us moms are some degree of crazy :-)I sometimes dream about something non-life threatening that will put me in the hospital for a few days on some kind of awesome (legitimate) drug.

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  18. I love sarcasm. LOVE IT. ITA with the person who said that intelligent people are sarcastic. :)

    I get the money thing. I own a business that is sinking and I think it is killing me. Just when you think you have turned a corner and BAM someone takes all the money (aka headway) you have made....and since I have employees who need to be paid, i am the one who loses out EVERY TIME. I would be making more money part time at Taco Bell. So if one more person tells me how great it is to be my own boss, i might just explode into a rage of "It is incredible. I love working endlessly for NO money. And that is a good month! I'm living the dream!"

    *sigh*

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  19. Anonymous11:24 PM

    I totally relate to the sleep deprivation, except I do it to myself, because I am a dumb__ about sleep.

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  20. Anonymous6:22 AM

    If sarcasm is a sin, I am totally going to hell.

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  21. oh man there are going to be frogs falling from the sky? crap, better start my emergency fund right away...

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  22. Anonymous8:33 AM

    I'm glad you've turned on anonymous comments so that I can say this to you like the coward I am ha ha. I feel awful reading this and it is all your fault. I hate the fact that we are friends but I have to come here to find out what is really going on in your life.

    Why is it easier for you to tell two thousand people on the internet what you are struggling with than to tell your flesh and blood friends?

    When I ask you how you are doing, you say you are fine, and you change the subject. You are clearly not fine. Why do you pretend you are fine? Is this what funny people do? Crack a joke and change the subject?

    You didn't even tell me that your house was in foreclosure and you were moving. It hurt to find that out after the fact because I would've wanted to help you.

    There are people who love you and want to be there for you. Let us in. I'm mad at you but I still love you.

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  23. And around and around we go. You will get there. and then you'll have some other emergency that will take you from being someone with a decent amount of savings "just in case" to someone who has to borrow money from her mom. Or maybe that's just me.

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  24. Hmmm. So we've turned on the comments, have we? Interesting. And now I will analyze: what works about your writing is - are - because there are a couple of things here:

    1) Your instinctive skill. The fact that you are a technical writer makes this ability to outburst in clean, incisive and yet ever so emotional strokes highly unlikely. And yet you do it. Your syntax is powerful, your natural rhythm something close to genius. Maybe this is the book you should have been writing all along - a sort of postcards-from-the-edge, cynical Brombeck kind of thing.

    2) You voice everyman. Like that guy who threw the window open in the = whoa, was it the eighties? seventies? = and yelled "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." People liked him. People were throwing their windows open all over the place. If my situation is different, my anger and frustration are very kin.

    3) You are funny. I don't think you can help it.

    You will live through this.

    I promise.

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  25. What the? You posted?

    Ok, now, I'll actually go and read what you wrote.

    See ya.

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  26. The "mad as hell" quote is from the movie "Network."

    Just fyi...

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  27. To Anonymous above -

    So, you're annoyed that she doesn't tell you about her problems to your face, but you will only tell her this anonymously? Methinks I smell a little hypocrisy in the air...

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  28. Yeah, I would take the mustang, but - it doesn't have enough seat belts for the kids. It's a total bachelor car.

    Anonymous - I'm sorry. It's hard to need people but easy to vent into a faceless void. Does that make any sense at all? I also have this fear of being that person who people duck down another hall to avoid, because they just can't take hearing about it AGAIN. (Hmmmm. I fear this will eventually happen with my blog.) Anyway, call me and I will tell you all about it, I promise. I'm a venting MACHINE right now, I am.

    K - you are too kind to me, and I love you. I opened comments this time because it's good to hear from other people that they have similar issues.

    I realize I'm being melodramatic. It's not like I'm a single mom working two shifts at the diner before catching the bus home. I'm lucky to have the problems I have, but that doesn't make them easier for me personally to deal with. Does that make sense?

    You guys are all awesome. Thank you for letting me know I'm not alone in this. XOXOXO

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  29. With a baby, it takes me about 20 hours to read a blog post.

    I thought the language of the devil was the sooth-saying kind promising shortcuts in a marathon world. Silly me and my scripture-readin'.

    "ANONYMOUS: Why do you pretend you are fine? Is this what funny people do? Crack a joke and change the subject?"

    Yes, that is exactly what we do. It's an age-old tradition passed down through the ages by those not murderous enough to get into the Gadianton clique. We don't want to kill anyone, just kill a topic.

    The real estate thing: DO IT!! The market is great for buyers right now. There are buyers! I hear you make money in real estate when people buy!

    Dave Ramsey, huh? I know a little bit about him.

    Frogs falling from the sky don't cause as much damage as they do a call for wet clean up on Aisle 5. Nothing some very hungry and sick dogs can't take care of.

    I just triggered my own gag reflex. Good morning!

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  30. That explains why I'm going to hell. I made a deal with the devil and sold my soul to sarcasm.

    We've been on the Dave Diet. I sort of hate him. In a good way of course.

    xo

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  31. I just want to know when I can get a ride in the mustang?

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  32. So nice to see you posted! Been reading your blog for about 2 years! We are now neighbors...I'm in Bountiful.
    I miss the cow at the top of your blog! I know it was just temporary....just sayin'!

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  33. I would so hug you and share my chocolate and that is saying something.

    I feel very bitter too and I have lost friends because of all our money woes. So move over on the bitter bench and I am so screwed if sarcasm is of the devil.

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  34. I was a real estate agent until two years ago when my husband told me he was tired of me paying $1200 in dues every year so I could have carte blanche to see inside strangers' houses. I hate it when he knows me so well!

    Good luck with that. I may call you just to be my see-inside-strangers'-houses buddy, OK?

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  35. Jodie4:05 PM

    You are one of my favorite bloggers. I think that that's true because something about your bitterness makes me feel a little better about mine. Here are the things I hate right now:
    1. people with great marriages
    2. people with respectful kids...especially if they seem to come by that with little to no effort.
    3. people with money to do...anything without feeling the pinch...even small stuff.
    4. skinny people
    ...and I think that about covers it.
    Thanks for writing Sue.

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  36. I love bitter rants too!
    When I was drowning in troubles (which I won't go into for fear of sounding like one of those oneupsmanship-type jerks) I'd have people (Churchies) ask me what they could do to help. And since the answer was "Everything!" I just answered "Nothing." Because I just didn't even know where to start and what's the point of crapifying someone else's life along side my own, you know? And I would also always answer "fine" when people asked how I was doing because the truth was just too horrible and emotionally draining and time-consuming to go into in detail and I find most people really don't want to hear it because it gives them an uncomfortable feeling. Seriously.
    Because charity sometimes faileth? Ok, maybe people that are supposed have charity sometimes faileth. (That'll keep me out of the path of the lightning bolts for sure! Though I must already be hell-bound since I honestly can't tell the difference between sarcasm and whatever the opposite of it is...is.)
    I hope things get better for you real quick-like Sue!!!

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  37. I must be the devil then, because I'm bilingual and sacarsm is my mother tongue.

    Ya, finances...it's a beautiful thing. WHATEV!

    Sorry you aren't getting the needed sleep. I am sure there isn't any bitter undertones in your morning accidentness. I certainly can agree with the whole slamming thing.

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  38. Sarcasm is a good thing...much better then a tirade of "F" words.
    just saying,
    sometimes life just sucks, is hard, seems unfair, and feels like God forgot you are out there.

    so use whatever tools you need to feel a little better...even if it means slamming drawers at 5:30 in the morning.

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  39. Someone once told me that sarcasm was the lowest form of humor. I promptly rolled my eyes and told them to jump off a cliff.

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  40. If sarcasm is the devil's language, our family will probably be holding its final reunion in a very warm place, and I don't mean Phoenix! Here's a great money-making plan for you, Sue,for which there appears to be a lively market, based on the above comments. Once you have your real estate license, just charge people to take "Roving Rant" home tours. They could ride in the convertible with the top down, see inside strangers' homes, make loud sarcastic comments, and possibly spit on the front porch of people who seem to have it all together. :-)

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  41. Or perhaps a frog legs take-out place. I hear they taste like chicken.

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  42. Sue, I love you. This sucks. It will pass but it sucks while it's NOT passing and there is no harm in saying so. I am with you on so many levels, except the one where YOU write so wittily about it all and I? I am wallowing in the suckiness of it all without WIT! So, you have at least one thing going for you.

    love you,
    Barb

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  43. GAH! I love you. I'm in a similar place in life, but like the other gal said, we don't play that one-upmanship game. Some days it is comforting to think about the D&C quote about all of this being for my good, and some days I want to ask who the hell thought of THAT ridiculous notion?
    (....Oh...)

    This sounds like a horrible thing to say, because it's not like I want bad things to happen to people, but sometimes the hardest part of going through crap in life is seeing people live their lives free of...crap. So it's refreshing to hear about your crap, because it makes me feel less alone. I've realized, though, that everyone has crap. Maybe we don't have the same crap, and maybe their crap isn't as visible and embarrassing as my crap, but it's still crap, and they have to deal with it just like I do.

    Do I get the award for using crap the most times in a comment?

    For the win!

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  44. I like your anon friend's words. they jogged my memory back to a time when someone in my fam committed suicide and I went to a sis in the primary presidency, bared my soul, shared the gory details and begged for her to take one of my kids for a few hours or give me some numbers of someone else to call- all so I could go plan a funeral. Unfortunately, it was not a good time for her because she had to wash her hair, er, meet the cleaners for her house she was trying to get ready to rent, or something. That was the first and last time I dished my own dirt and asked for help.

    But seriously, I think that saying "I'm fine" is a protective mechanism. Hell, its one thing to stew on my problems in my own head and silently freak out over the bleakness of my personal crap within the confines of my own head. Maybe mildly therapeutic to type out the words and launch them into cyberspace. But. Its a whole new bigger badder ballgame to have to articulate the very words and hear your own voice acknowledge the fact that things aren't fine. Saying the words out loud to another person is too risky of business for me. Not to mention the onset of instant waterworks and a fat cry headhache that I would just as soon not add to the craptastic pile of UnFineNess I get to live with.

    Know that there are many of us out here, living some version of your life in a parellel universe.

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  45. I've read your blog for awhile but don't think I've ever commented but want to for this one because YES! ARGH! MONEY CRAP!

    Over the summer, my car cost us a freakin crap load of money and while my husband was driving it to the dealership to get it fixed...AGAIN....someone slammed into his truck AND LEFT. And yes, we generally try to follow the Dave principles as well and do a fairly decent job of staying debt free but we normally have no more than like $34 in our "emergency fund."

    And to Anon: Sometimes we don't tell our friends things like this because when we do, even our really good friends say things like, "If you get a new car I'm going to be so jealous of you." or "Good thing you have your emergency fund built up!" And it really makes you just want to simultaneously hit them and cry.

    And you know what else? Sometimes I think God is a little sarcastic. In Job, He asks where Job was during creation when God was busy making the earth. That's sarcasm, right?

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  46. Sue! Don't Real Estate Agents have to answer the phone?? A little fact I realized once I got my license. . .hence the 'inactive status' I renew every year!!! And you think you have issues?? HELP!

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  47. Is it bad that every time I hear the David Ramsey name I gag. I know his stuff is good...I just have in laws that love him a LITTLE too much.

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  48. I love you girl, and the next time I'm in Utah you are SO taking me for a ride in your dope money 'Stang. You can drive real slow up behind middle school kids and I'll bock like a chicken at them! (I made a kid fall off his bike once that way, it was AWESOME!) And then we will snarf the largest shave ices we can find.

    xoxo,
    Nick-Dog

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  49. Personally, I think one should try to be fluent in more than one language, and judging something by its origins...that's like racism or something, isn't it?

    I had to work the last two weeks at Neil's office while someone else watched the little girls. It just about killed me. And it was temporary, light at the end of the tunnel stuff. I don't get what you're going through hardly at all, can't pretend to, but I get it more than I used to.

    It really, really sucks, doesn't it?

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  50. Dear Dear Sue. Thanks so much for writing again. It doesn't matter what you say, it is always worth reading and thinking about.

    Wren has described exactly what I've been doing for the past 3 hours this lovely Sabbath Day. I'm currently trying to figure out a good therapist to go to because telling my friends my problems isn't going to do me any good. They just have to be nice and say how sorry they are and the best advice they could give me is - go talk to a therapist.

    And I think I can relate to the car thing. When it was really cold a few days ago, I was using a credit card to scrape ALL the windows of my 1999 Suburban, and I heard my husband's truck honk. I looked up to see my husband standing in the window above the driveway clicking the remote start to his 2009 luxury edition truck. And at that moment I KNEW marriage isn't fair.

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  51. Um, short the real estate thing, I think I could own this post. Your VT REALLY said that sarcasm was the language of the devil??? REALLY????? I'm speechless. You would love me around at night, being as sleep deprived as you but not earning any money at it. Hang in there. I was going to blame myself for my financial ruin but suburban correspondent had a good idea there-I could just blame Obama, except resenting Utah like I do, I'll blame Bush for starting it first. If I have to move, I will totally look you up. I love red mustangs, even if they're ancient.

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  52. It is what it is. - how about that for a saying?
    congrats on the stang

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  53. I miss you. I hope you are doing ok.

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  54. I miss you. Please post something. Anything. We will love it, I promise. (And yes, I have my own money/weight/health/love struggles that are suffocating so I understand. I get frequent blessings and they help)

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  55. I miss reading your posts. I hope everything is okay.

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  56. sarcasm is of devil but again its upto u its a survivor tool too. u drive mustang wow

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  57. Hope you are okay too. Seriously.

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  58. You have always been beautiful.

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  59. Just glad you are back...rant away!

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