It has come to my attention that the need for super heroes has reached a critical point in our history. I have been watching television documentaries about Green Arrow and the Flash, and now there is a new one, Supergirl. And I didn’t miss all the media attention when Robert Downey Jr. formed a super team of powerful people and destroyed a European country so thoroughly that I can’t find it on a map anywhere. So, wanting to get in on the action, I decided I needed a super power of my own. And I know what it is. I am not strong. I am not fast. I am not as smart as Robert Downey Jr. who is both Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man. So I have to settle for one of those second tier super powers. Like sarcasm.
Unbeknownst to most who know me, I went away to the far oriental country of Kathman-dooki to study under an ancient master. His name was Aiknowyooare Butwhattami, ancient master of the Shaolin art of Sarcasto Fu. He was the one who taught me to meditate on the foibles of people I don’t like and the pet peeves that drive me to despise them. He taught me that a well-placed sarcastic comment, like a well-thrown dagger, can cut right to the heart.
“You must focus your ire on the words you say, Grassstomper, to give the desired meaning to words that actually mean the opposite of what you mean to mean… in order to be mean,” said the ancient master.
“That makes perfect sense to me,” I said with a leftward eye-roll.
“Excellent, oh bug-headed one, you inflected that just right to hurt me fatally without revealing your witlessly shallow stupidity.”
I smiled at the praise as he wrote a big letter “F” on my report card.
But if I choose to use sarcasm as my super power, I have the unfortunate problem of competing with the super hero known as Sarcasto Man. He has previously seized on this notion that you can defeat super villains by sarcastically shaming them into committing oriental ritual suicide… called Hairy Kurie, or something like that. Or was that ornamental suicide? You know, the kind that decorates the sides of your house with dark reds and crimsons. I think you do it with a sword… or cut your own head off with a butter knife or something weird like that. Anyway, Sarcasto Man has told me that he achieves his super-power effects by holding a very high opinion of himself and talking down to everyone else around him. He was supposed to become part of a super hero team, but failed at the task because his sarcasm caused as many suicides among his teammates as it did amongst his super-villain enemies and their minions. In fact, he could not use the power on minions very well because they are usually too stupid to understand that you actually mean the opposite of what you are saying.
“It was very discouraging after I defeated the Mangling Mingler,” Sarcasto Man told me, “because after he cut his own head off with a butter knife, his minions, the Mingle Men, blamed me for his death and started pelting me with rocks. I got such a bunch of red welts on my buttocks. Fortunately my head is rock-proof.” (Did I forget to mention that using sarcasm as a super power is greatly aided by having a very thick skull?)
I began to despair of ever achieving levels of sarcasm-ness to be in his league. So I started looking for alternatives that were close in content, but different in application. I briefly thought about using irony instead of sarcasm. Tim the Turtle Boy (whom I interviewed as a potential boy sidekick… um, not trying to be gay or anything) demonstrates my irony skill by holding up his magical cast-iron flat iron with which he either creates irony or flattens out the super villain’s clothing wrinkles. Well, maybe I am not all that clear on how one becomes a superhero, and I don’t want to make Robert Downey Jr. mad by trying to become Irony Man and crowding his personal shtick. He might use sarcasm on me and suggest I would make a really great Pun-Man. You know, killing villains with really bad puns and jokes that turn your head inside out. That would be a truly shameful thing.
During my middle-school teaching years I also bought and read copies of The Prince and the Pauper, Roughing It, and Life on the Mississippi. I would later use a selection from Roughing It as part of a thematic unit on Mark Twain where I used Will Vinton’s glorious clay-mation movie, The Adventures of Mark Twain as a way to painlessly introduce my kids to the notion that Mark Twain was funny and complex and wise.
