Adventures in Sarcasm

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was having difficulties communicating with the locals. Sadly, it doesn't seem like things are improving as quickly as might be hoped. Despite my employer's claim that Canadians are the kings of sarcasm, it seems that there is a gulf between their style of communication and the one that I am familiar with that belies their royal sarcastic status.

In this environment, I must be finely tuned to the warning signs of impending communicative catastrophe. To miss these signs as I did a few days ago is to risk offending people in ways that are at once comical and embarassing.

I should have known better when the boss showed me a new style of winter boots that had come into the store. They were a somewhat less than attractive combination of brown faux-leather and fluffy hot pink trim. Upon seeing the latest addition to grace our shoe section, I solemnly intoned "They're beautiful." to which my boss replied, somewhat perplexed "I think they have a bit too much pink."

Right, no harm done so far. A simple misunderstanding between me and my employer, he thinks I like pink kids boots, but he already thinks I'm a bit odd so it's OK. But this is a warning that my sarcasm radar is malfunctioning. It is not correctly calibrated for my current environment. A wiser man than I would have been wary of further attempts at sarcasm - either my own or perceived attepts at sarcasm by others. Not so your intrepid correspondent.

The big faux pas for the day came a few hours later, when a customer entered the store to return a pair of ski pants he had bought his girlfriend for christmas. His first mistake was to buy extra large pants for his partner. I am by no means a successful wooer of women-folk, but even I know that this is a complete rookie error. Gentlemen, when buying pants for your ladyfriends, always err on the side of flattery. Buying pants in a smaller size will assure your partner that she is slim and beautiful in your eyes, that to you she is a slyph, a waif, a stick-insect in desperate need of a sandwich. If the unavoidable fact that she is a few sizes larger than a stick insect means that she needs a bigger size of pant then that's fine. You can blame pant manufacturers, the curvature of space-time, a socialist plot. It becomes you and her against the whole world of skinny folk and their cruel judgements. Buying her extra large pants is demonstrable proof that you think she's fat. For those folk dumb enough to think that matters, this is a cardinal offense.

But I digress. My customer has bought extra large pants, and now he would like to return them, because unfortunately they are too small for his partner. So far so good. Except he then makes a comment to the effect of "Buying your girlfriend extra large pants makes her think you think she's fat. And then they didn't fit. It's never a good look when you make your girlfriend cry on christmas day."

Don't judge me too harshly too early, but upon hearing this I laughed just a little. This has nothing to do with me being a bad person. Rather, it's because this genuinely seemed to be a comment made in jest - a kind of black humour at the customer's own expense. Of course, reading that comment in the cold light of day might not paint it in a funny light, but recall that this was a gentlemen who had just come into a shop and said this to a complete stranger. If I had to return a pair of pants after christmas I might well make a similar quip to the shop attendent for a cheap laugh. And if I had managed to simultaneously suggest I thought my partner was fat while demonstrating that she was too big to be extra large I certainly wouldn't then explain that to the shop staff. That's the kind of embarrasing detail that folks typically keep to themselves. In my defence, I didn't even think it was that funny. Yes, the concept was pretty good but I thought the delivery was a bit off. My laugh was more one of politeness than genuine mirth. But it turned out that his delivery was off because this wasn't a good joke in bad taste. Instead it was a hearfelt description of a potentially ruined christmas involving a sensitive and unhappy girlfriend.

What ensued was a short, but deeply awkward, silence. Fortunately, my boss was also present in the conversation and managed to distract the poor guy by trying to find some bigger pants (there weren't any). I spent that time being very interested in some extremely important things on the other side of the store.

Communication here is a veritable minefield. Not only do I have to ensure that I actually say things I genuinely believe, but I have to assume that people who say things to me are also being sincere. Given that Canadians are the kings of sarcasm, I can't see this ending well.