The Snark Report
A man got on the elevator and announced, “I’m late.” I wanted to respond, “I’m still stopping on the fourth floor,” but I kept my mouth shut and pressed the button. I can only assume he needed to verbalize his truth and that he didn’t expect me to do anything about his tardiness.
Side note: By the time you get to the elevator, you’ve done as much as you can to get to work on time. Now, you just have to accept the consequences and take the ride. Surely, he didn’t expect me to ride to the sixth floor and back down to four to save him 20 seconds.
But I digress, like I do. A sarcastic voice in the dark recesses of my mind wanted to shout, “What do you want me to do about it?” Deep down that Snark Part of my brain wanted to press all the buttons and grin at him like Patty McCormack in “The Bad Seed.”
Lately, the Snark Part wants control. Let’s face it, the world has been stupid, and my inner demon wants out. At best, it’s all I can do not to sound like Regina George in “Mean Girls.” At worst, my inner demon would like to bonk everyone over the head with a shovel.
On Sunday, I was strolling back to my car in the Giant Eagle parking lot when a woman rolled down her window and asked me for my spot. Suddenly, I felt rushed. I stepped up my hustle and scurried to the car, throwing the groceries in the passenger seat instead of placing them neatly in the trunk. While I did everything I could to dash out of the space, a drop of resentment festered. For the record, I know fully that I didn’t need to frantically zip around for her benefit – I chose to – but I also chose to resent it.
Deep down, I wanted to go full Marcel Marceau and serve her the slow-motion pantomime to the vehicle – perhaps in a windstorm. Who knows? I could have gotten trapped in an invisible box on the way to the car.
At work, someone said, “Can I ask a dumb question?”
I wanted to respond with, “There are no dumb questions – just dumb people asking them.” It’s my standard snark.
In that same meeting, another person started a new topic two minutes before the meeting was scheduled to end, plunging us down a rabbit hole for an additional 17 minutes.
I rolled my eyes so far back in my head I could see my brain.
Another warm body – to call her an intelligent human being would grossly misuse the word intelligent – was agreeing with everything the boss was saying, popping out a whispered “yes” every few moments like she was at a church revival. She nodded in agreement so much that she looked like the Hawaiian Hula Girl Bobble Head on the dashboard of a Ford pickup.
I need a couple of days in a cave.