Who's Laughing Now?

It all started with a conversation...

Smollfry 6:26 A.M.: -rolls eyes-

RevivingThe80s 6:26 A.M.: Oh yeah!!

RevivingThe80s 6:26 A.M.: What was that? A wink? Ah. You are pleased.

RevivingThe80s 6:26 A.M.: Glad to hear

Smollfry 6:27 A.M.: .

Smollfry signed off at 6:27 A.M.

OH MY GOD! WHATS THIS? ONE OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS JUST SIGNED OFFLINE, CUTTING OFF THE TEENY BIT OF ENTERTAINMENT THAT YOU HAD, YOUR ONLY SOURCE OF AMUSEMENT, UNTIL THE REST OF THE WORLD WAKES UP! YOURE, YOURE...YOURE DOOMED!

WHOA, WHOA, DONT FREAK OUT TOO MUCH! SHE PROBABLY JUST GOT TIRED. AFTER ALL, SHE WAS ON AIM ALL NIGHT CHATTING WITH YOU, OR RATHER, LISTEN TO YOU BABBLE AND RAMBLE ABOUT WORTHLESS SHIT.

YOUR ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. I AM OVER-REACTING...ITS NOT SUCH A BIG DEAL. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS I CAN ENTERTAIN MYSELF, I DONT NEED ANOTHER PERSON!!!

YOU ARE SO FULL OF CRAP! YOU KNOW... YOURE LUCKY THERE IS MORE THAN JUST ONE SIDE OF US! YES... YES - YOU ARE LUCKY THAT THERE EVEN IS AN US. DONT TRY TO PRETEND THAT YOU CAN ENTERTAIN YOURSELF ON YOUR OWN. YOU CANT. YOU ARE A FOOL FOR EVEN CONTEMPLATING THE IDEA.

NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! IT IS I, THAT IS WISE, MY FRIEND. YOU ARE THE FOOL.

OKAY. WHY DONT YOU GO ON AHEAD AND TRY TO ENTERTAIN YOURSELF THEN? YOUVE GOT ONE HOUR. I VOW THAT YOU CANNOT KEEP YOURSELF OCCUPIED AND ENTERTAINED FOR THAT FULL HOUR.

NO PROBLEM. BRING IT ON.

FINE. YOUR TIME BEGINS NOW. GOOD LUCK, CAUSE YOURE GONNA NEED IT. YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO COMPLETE THE STORY, AND ONE HOUR TO TO ENTERTAIN YOURSELF, NO OTHERS!

What happened? What were we talking about? Hmmm, right before she signed off.....

Ahhh! I remember! She rolled her eyes at me.

Eh, friends do it all the time. Its the ultimate gesture of sarcasm and apathy. Perfectly normal for a teenager, as are many things of this nature. Eye rolling is just one of the many habits that teens acquire over the years, one of which can be hard to break. A team of judges had been assembled to assess some young peoples related habits; seeking to identify and understand the many ways teens approach common situations, and scoring them based on the skill/perfection of the teen who demonstrates the habit, and the originality/creativity of the situation, and the way the teen chooses to handle it

Though I couldnt tell you why, these researchers viewed me as a perfect candidate for analyzing. I had no objections, but did think any good could possibly come of it for them. Because I knew they were probably on a tight clock schedule, I gave them permission to analyze me and my surroundings for a day, but apologized in advance for so much of their time that I knew would be wasted. Before I left them to make the decision of whether or not to analyze me and my day, I concluded our brief meeting with a somewhat arrogant comment. Its going to be your time that gets wasted, I said, but, youre the experts - not me. Its your choice. They stayed.

Sure enough, before long, they had found what they thought to be a potentially important piece of research; an interaction with a schoolmate during my lunch hour, in which I would fall victim to a common teenage antic; one known infamously as The eye-roll.

The judges saw it coming, and clearly anticipated my response. I noticed their eagerness -like that of a child on Christmas Eve. Was I supposed to have some super interesting reaction? A kid rolled their eyes at me. Big deal. It happened to us teens every day. But I guess thats why they were so interested. I watched them twitching, waiting anxiously for me to shoot back with something clever, something to prove my wit, anything. I dont think they cared. In their eyes, only one thing could be read, only one word could be seen by looking into their eyes. RESPOND!, their eyes begged. I wanted to laugh at the stupidity of the whole event. Were they there to make me feel nervous each time some idiot wanted to shoot me an insulting gesture? These teens were good for nothing but making my blood boil; spoiled brats who believed they were born as royalty, deserving of nothing but the best. So what was my reply to this dimwit? What could I do? How should I respond to her pathetic eye-roll attempt to capture that feeling of superiority; something which this girl could only achieve through bringing down others? I knew what to do.

I had come up with a great counter-attack. I would simply ignore it, or better yet - pretend that she had just performed the opposite gesture, and react as if she had. What would be the ultimate opposite for this played-out teenage act? I needed to think about it. How could I counter this vicious sarcasm attack? I knew exactly how, and I had thought of the perfect opposite, within seconds. Any longer, and my response would be so delayed, it wouldnt matter what it was; it would still seem lame.. A WINK!! It was great! It was perfect. My reaction to her oh-so-common teenaged eye-roll was quite simple. I would reply as if she had just winked at me.

Yes, I know, I had thought to myself, I am fucking brilliant!

And it was. Quite the genius thing to do really; conduct a response that would be expected of someone who had just winked at me. It would provide just the right amount of shock, guilt, embarrassment, and, perhaps if I got lucky- shame as well. But you know me...

Or do you? Now was the time to figure out the answer to this question. I had just come up with a great idea, a perfect response to the eye-roll, but what happens next? Why, I go with my first instinctive idea, that brilliant idea of mine that practically defined originality and wit. Yes, I believed myself to be quite intelligent! No....

What would have been intelligent, would have been for me to follow through with the wink response. Did I do it?

Of course not. After all, who in their right mind would follow a genius idea, one that others deemed brilliant, and idea that was sure to seem clever, shock the person, and make them think? Everyone, thats who.

Everyone, except me.

Sure, I was intelligent. Sure, I had great ideas too. But that didnt matter. The fact was, no matter how good of an idea I came up with, I couldnt follow through with it. I just couldnt prove to people, for once, that I was normal.

So... what happened?

Well, what better to counter this friends sarcasm than with... SARCASM OF MY OWN! After all, I am a teenager too. Teens are sarcastic - Welcome to the new generation. Thats just the way it is, its what everyone perceives, so why change it? Why try to skirt around it and be the one to decide not to return that sarcasm? It wouldnt change anything. People would still know that teens are sarcastic. No reason needed, they just are. It wouldnt change anyones view.

So I decided, okay, Ill go along with the wink idea, afer all - people did think it was clever. When someone rolls their eyes, act as though they just winked at you! So I did; I was following the plan - well...sort of. Id pick up the eye-rollers sarcasm, and add my own wit to it. The event went as follows:

6:26 A.M. Subject rolls eyes in my direction - teenage body language that screams out sarcasm and apathy. The rating? Well, she was quite the skillful eye-roller. The judges gave her a full five points for that. But the other five points, needed to reach the perfect score of ten - would be based solely on originality and creativity. Although the judges decisions for the amount of points that would be earned in this area did vary, there was one think in which they all agreed upon: An eye-roll, especially one given by a teenager, was anything but original. There wasnt a teen alive who had not completed the gesture a minimum of once or twice. So, what, you are wondering, was the total score for the eye-roller? An unoriginal and undeserved 8.6! They swear it a ludicrous theory when I suggested that their scoring may have been influenced by the fact that she happened to be a quite sexy chick. I didnt argue. Theyre the experts.

6:26 A.M. After receiving the infamous eye-roll, I replied quickly with a counter-attack. Was it the original plan? Of course not, because I had to be more difficult. I did stick with the original idea of the wink plan, but to a minimal extent. I wasnt worried about retaliating sarcasm to this particular subject.

What was that? A wink? Call me crazy, judges, but I believe our subject just winked at me! I had said. I made sure to put an emphasis on the word wink, providing it with its own special identity in the sentence.

So how are we doing? Well, if Id have stopped there, I think it would have been perfect. But I couldnt. It just wasnt me, and anyone who was a true friend of mine knew that. They knew that everything would not go directly according to plan, because that just wasnt the way I operated. Just as they had suspected, I did not stop there. I paused for a quick breath, and then began to continue speaking. My continuation was indeed a mistake. It was practically begging the crowd to acknowledge, if they hadnt already - that I was insane.

After deciding to acknowledge her eye-roll as instead, a wink - the much more favorable, much friendlier gesture- I felt compelled to continue, trying to play off as best I could the honest believe that this girl had, in fact, just winked at me.

Why, why- couldnt I just have stopped there? What happened next would forever deem me a crazy, one that the entire school would be able to laugh at, one that had achieved a status that was actually quite difficult for most to reach, even if they attempted. For me, however, it came naturally. I was a natural weirdo. All I had to do was be myself. Sadly, thats exactly what I did.

You know... in Babaritious, when you wink at someone, it signifies that you are a cannibal, and that you intend for them to be your next victim.

The preppy girl glared at me, with an expression on her face that could be read by everyone around - a look that screamed nothing other than What a freak!

Really! You think Im lying... but its true.

Why, if you dont believe me, you go right on ahead and ask someone who knows. You go on and hobble your ass down to Barbaritious, and you go ahead and work up the nerve to wink at someone! Or perhaps - you are a world class idiot, and have never heard of Barbaritious! Perhaps, you are ignorant, or perhaps you are moronic, ever think of that? Oh hell, why lie? I dont have to choose one or the other; because you my friend, may very well be an IGNORANT MORON!

Oh yeah, thats right!

Youve got the best of both worlds. Or the worst. It all depends on where your pride lies. Some people take pride in shame. For everything that the world looks down upon, there are a few who glorify it - who take pride in all that is shameful; feel embarrassed by what they should be proud of.

Yep.

I said too much. But I dont suppose I regret it. I had yet to find out what I had scored, not that any of us cared, this was their research project, not ours. Most were unaware that they were even being monitored while at school. I later found out what theyd scored my approach as. As the final score I received an 8.2, that eye-roller chick scored higher than me. I didnt think it was right, but I also really didnt care. It made no difference. Still, when shed heart that she was a higher scoring new generation teen, and had over scored me by .4, she was ecstatic. I heard about it daily for weeks.

LETTER TO BE SENT TO EYE-ROLLER

Dear Eye-Roller Chick,

Its a sick world we live in, aint it? You have no idea.... and you wont - not until you run into some dumb bastard who has fuckin framed his divorce papers, proudly displaying them for all the world to see.

But that is the least of your worries. You might be freaked out or disgusted by these examples, but if thats the case - then you have probably already forgotten what you just got yourself into.

Remember?

You just so happened to be ignorant enough to laugh at me, to mock me when I said that theyd think you were a cannibal, searching for a human entree, and you did it anyway. Well, my friend, whos laughing now?

By the time you get to read this - the account of our event for the judges- youll be sitting in a cold, wet cell. Youll be sitting on a decade old mattress, stained from years of use in the jails. Sitting there, just watching - waiting. But what will you be waiting for? Do you really want to know?

I figured I would peak your curiosity, which I must have, because you are still reading.

Okay, you wanted to know, so Ill tell you. Youll be sitting on that cold hard mattress, waiting for nothing, because there will be nothing to wait for. Youll be watching water drip from the ceiling, from the moldy corner right above your bed. Youll wake up one morning to severe stomach cramps, swearing that youve gotten food poisoning, but can do nothing but feel embarrassment and shame when the guard laugh in your face. Their faces glow in sheer delight as they proceed to tell you that your drinking water and the toilet plumbing run through the same pipes. Theyre amused, watching your face grimace. They chuckle all the way down the hall, and around the corner, leaving you in your frustration and stomach pains. You wont sleep comfortably, because every time you manage to begin drifting off, you slapped in the face with another mucky water drop from the leak above you. What a way to live. The most exciting part of your day will be lunch, when youll be lucky to be served the scraps off of a dogs dish. Youll wait in anticipation daily, wanting to know what you get to eat that day. You only get that one meal a day, so food is constantly on your mind. The highlight of each day you live, for the rest of your life, will be eating someones second hand scraps with a pint of expired milk. I hope youre having fun in the prison. Dont you wish now that you had taken me seriously when I told you theyd arrest you? When I told you they would label you a killer? Dont wink at them, I said. Do anything else, but dont wink. You cant say I didnt warn you. You know, none of this would have happened if you werent so eager to catch me in a lie - so eager to laugh in my face, prove me wrong, and label me a liar. You may have been right in saying that Babaritious doesnt sound like a real place. Id agree that it sounds like something that might come out of a Dr. Seuss Childrens book, but I assured you that it is very real, and should you visit there and wink at someone, youd be a goner. Forever locked in a small, cold and smelly cage. I told you youd live with the rats. I said youd might as well be one, because you would eat the same food, catch the same diseases, and experience the same misery. But not even the rats would be in as bad of a position as Im sure you are now, as you sit in your cramped, foul-smelling cell, because you, my friend, have now become the animal. You are the caged one. But look at the rat above you, running free throughout the drywall, in and out of any pipe he pleases. Think of the rats, who get to feast on the McDonalds leftovers that had been thrown in the dump after closing, while you, eat the scraps from the police dogs. Yes, sad as it may be, inhumane as it might sound, they dont care. And they dont have to. In Baboritious, there is no such think as too much torture. You are now the animal, and you are in captivity. Even the zoo animals are more privileged than you, because they have visitors. You will not see a friendly face for the rest of your life. Its just you, the unsympathetic prison guards, and the rats. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Sincerely,

The one you once called Crazy

but Ill remind you... whos laughing now?