Snappy answers to stupid questions are great if you're Al Jaffee.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this postI used to get a kick out of MAD's "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" (SATSQ) feature. Perhaps I got too big a kick out of it, because I have a serious problem with sarcasm.
You may have noticed.
After church yesterday, I was standing around talking with a few people and somehow we got on the topic of climbing the volcano in Nicaragua, a story of drama and intrigue, and my own badly executed SATSQ. Actually, the execution was fine, but it was just really not necessary. That's generally the case with most SATSQ, the way people who don't feel like chatting tell people who do to just shut up without being rude and saying shut up but making them feel like dirt and essentially being rude all the same.*
After the whole ordeal of climbing up and then climbing down and the blazing heat, I was tired and red-faced. I'm one of those people who don't sweat much, but gets a red face instead. I was hot, cranky, and out of breath from the climb. I was in the process of dousing my face with my warmish bottle of water to empty it out and fill it with cold water from the cooler when a guy in our group, C., walked up and asked me a question. Here's how it went.
Me: (trying to catch my breath, bright red face, throwing water over my head)
C: Are you tired?
Me: What gave that away? The red face? The lack of breath? (I stomped away, towards the bus, making a dramatic exit because I know drama.)
OK, so it wasn't a premium SATSQ. But it was a standard barking response by me.
"You said that?" Mike asked, feigning a sort of horror as if he didn't ever say anything worse. "He was probably just trying to make conversation."
Well that's just great, Mike. Make me feel guilt, and right after a church service, for something I said six months ago.
At the time, I hadn't thought that. I just thought C. was pointing out the a) obvious and b) extreme red condition of my face which, though I know it was red, should never be pointed out. I had never considered someone might be a) being nice b) seeing if I could still talk which is one of the key points of many first aid maneuvers to see if the victim is almost dead.
"Yeah. I felt kind of bad. C. is such a nice person; he didn't deserve that." I said.
But see, now that I'm looking at the bare-bones conversation, I'm thinking that C. was actually being sarcastic in the question.
A kind of Snappy Questions Requiring Snappy Answers. In which case, my sympathies are out the window. I just can't decide what it was, now, and if I owe someone an apology for being a snit. However, a) It doesn't seem like C. to be mean, since I didn't see evidence of a mean bone in his body, but b) perhaps he's secretly cruel and NOW WE ALL KNOW, or c) I know there's an excess of a-b-c listing in this post but I couldn't seem to stop; I don't know what the problem was. d) Done now.
Also, there is a war on the other side of the world making this post completely irrelevant.
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*The trouble with asterisks is that they sometimes lead nowhere.
Labels: friends, my life, nicaragua
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 8/14/2006 12:04:00 AM
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2 Comments:
Speaking of asterisks that lead nowhere, my favorite use of an asterisk in a book was in the preface to Walt Kelly's Pogo Peek-A-Book, leading to this footnote.
* Baby arachnid, squashed. Sorry.
Maybe that's why you use so many asterisks. They remind you of squashed spiders.
Obligatory on-topic comment: I love Al Jaffee's work. Mad did an anthology of his stuff a quarter-century ago or so, including his National Inquirer parody, comic strip parodies (what if comic strip characters acted like real animals/children/cops/crooks, etc.), a few Fold-Ins, and a couple of episodes of "Snappy Answers." His new product ideas don't seem that farfetched any more. In one of the articles, he built 3-D models of children's drawings of toys, complete with warped perspective and crooked lines. Brilliantly twisted stuff.
By 
MichaelBates, at
13/8/06 23:01
I confess to still having a few of my old MAD magazines lying around and I still sit and chuckle wickedly at the SATSQ stuff. I just find it too funny.
Brilliantly twisted is an apt phrase.
By Julie, at
13/8/06 23:29
