The Year I Gave Up Sarcasm

As everyone who knows me is aware, I can be rather sarcastic. What those of you who didn't know me in high school may not be aware of is that I used to be WAY more sarcastic.

As in, virtually everything I said was sarcastic.

I'm afraid that what you just read there was, "I was sarcastic most of the time," when what I meant was "Essentially every word out of my mouth was sarcastic."

Just so we're clear.

I mean, I was funny. These were funny, witty, clever things that I was saying. People laughed, usually even the people it was directed at, and that was nice. You'd have laughed, too, but you would have had to be there. (Of course, some of you were.). Give me someone to play off who was just as sarcastic, and we'd be unstoppable. (Sorry, Mrs. Clement, but putting me and Scott together in the back of the room for AP English was NOT a good idea. For you, anyways. We had a great time.)

Nevertheless, I sometimes felt like I was being a little mean; I felt like maybe I could tone things down a bit. Say nice things, or at least not mean things, even if they were funny. (I promise, they were funny. I'm not just making this up.)

So, being Catholic, for Lent one year, I gave up sarcasm.

Yep.

Cold turkey, flat-out no more sarcasm.

I thought it would be for the best. When you try to phase things out, you just lose track of your quota of sarcastic remarks, and figure, "Hey, I'm sure I've got one more, and this is REALLY FUNNY. I can't NOT say this. This is too clever not to be shared with the world. The world would be poorer for not hearing this." And before you know it, you're back to full-time sarcasm. So I thought I'd just rip the band-aid off.

I failed.

Miserably.

Once you get in the habit of thinking up quips to everything, it gets really hard to think of normal things to say. (Especially when you're not great at small talk to begin with... But that's for another post.). But I really wanted to do this! Personal growth, and being a better person, and all that.

The end result was communication from me that consisted solely of two-word sentence fragments. That was generally how long it took me to catch myself. I still made people laugh, but now they were laughing AT me, because I was this frustrated, inarticulate mess of unfulfillment.

To make things even worse, this was right in the middle of a trip to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. 20 or so of my closest friends, all of whom know me pretty well, and therefore realize exactly what's happening, and find it hysterical. And here I am, in the middle of a great band trip, basically incommunicado.

If you've seen the episode of the Big Bang Theory where Amy won't let Sheldon finish anything... That was me. Except I was doing it to myself. Voluntarily.

So yeah. I don't think I even made it through the second day before I just couldn't take it any more. Personal growth is great and all, but this? This was hell. Jesus's 40 days in the desert could NOT have been as hard as those two days. There's just no way. I've seen deserts; they're not THAT bad.

I don't remember what I wound up giving up for Lent instead, but I'm sure it was a breeze after that.

And I never tried that again.

EVER.