January 25, 2010

Those of you that know me, or read here regularly, can undoubtedly tell that I can be pretty sarcastic. It’s just how I operate. Obviously, it’s not for everyone, but it has always amazed me when I encounter people that have no comprehension of the concept. By that I mean that they have no idea when a comment is intended sarcastically, in jest, tongue-in-cheek, etc… I’m sure we’ve all encountered people in our lives that just don’t get it. I don’t blame them, they’re just not hard-wired to understand it.

Take my ex-mother-in-law for instance. (And let’s all take a moment to just revel in the phrase ‘ex-mother-in-law', shall we?) This woman just could not understand that sometimes a spoken sentence was not to be taken at face value. For instance, just prior to my brother’s 40th birthday, we were having dinner, and I said to my brother, “This is the big one coming up, isn’t it?” And my brother responded, ‘Yep, it’s my 30th!”, to which I responded, “Wait a minute! Are you telling me all this time that I’ve been older than you!?”

(Now, please keep in mind that my brother is 9 ½ years older than me.)

My mother-in-law comes over to me and looks me square in the eye, and says calmly to me, “Sean, you were right. Your brother’s actually going to be 40.”

So, let me get this straight…she thinks that: a) I don’t know how old my own brother is; b) that I’m unclear on which one of us is older?; and c) that I’m OFF BY TEN YEARS!? Really?

My Uncle Mike is the same way. I love him to death, but he just doesn’t understand the concept. Years ago, for my mother’s birthday, we had a family brunch at a restaurant in Burlington, just on the shore of Lake Ontario. It was March, and it was still pretty cold outside. While we were having brunch and looking out over the lake, I saw a group of young kids playing on the rocks down by the water. As a parent, I quickly realized how unsafe it was, and I said to my Uncle Francesco, who was sitting beside me, “Well, if they fall in, at least the water isn’t cold this time of year.”

Uncle Mike leans across the table, puts his hand on top of mine and looks sternly at me, dead serious, and says, “Actually Sean, the water is quite cold this time of year.”

This is what I’m talking about. It’s not a flaw, it’s just the way that some people operate. You either get it or you don’t.

Now, fast forward to this past weekend, and I’m preparing some food on Saturday for dinner on Sunday. I saw a recipe on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives that called for pieces of steak to be marinated in garlic and olive oil which had been roasted together. So I peeled about 40 cloves of garlic (no joke) and roasted them with the oil and salt, then let it cool and added the beef, sliced off of a roast, and let it marinate for 24 hours.

In short, the house smelled like garlic, our clothes smelled like garlic, the car smelled like garlic, the barbecue smelled like garlic…everything smelled like garlic.

When we were eating dinner, Lucas turns to me and says “Well, at least there’s not a lot of garlic in this.”

My son is only 8 years old, and not only does he understand the concept of sarcasm, he can use it correctly!

Like father, like son.