You Totally Get Me | Writing Promt #17

Your family's "love language" is the gift that keeps on giving

I come from a long line of smartasses. My maternal grandpa was the Elder Smartass. Because she served as his apprentice for years, my mom developed a finely honed sarcastic edge, too. We’ll call her a Smartass Adept.

We kids were no different. We were all forged in the same fire. But we were not equally gifted. Of us three, I claim the edge because not only am I a smartass, but I’m an extremely literate one. (My brothers wouldn’t read a book if you threw it at them. But they’re smart in their own ways.) I’m a … Smartass Sage, if you will.

We’ll call Scott a Smartass Initiate. Dustin ranks a bit higher as Smartass Prefect. The man has a talent that can’t be taught.

And if there’s one thing smartassery requires, it’s understanding. You have to know your audience, and they have to know you. A quip is only as quippy as the quipper’s understanding of the target. If I don’t “get” you as a person, then my sarcasm will miss the mark. If you don’t “get” me, then my jibe is going to leave you feeling insulted rather than observed in a wry, humorous way.

I got off on this tangent by simply writing a placeholder sub-header for this post. I wrote the words, “the gift that keeps on giving.”

And suddenly, I’m in my mom’s living room. Someone has just mentioned some dubious “gift” they’ve received, and one of us is 100 percent going to comment, “Clark, that’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Why? Because in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Cousin Eddie said that to Clark W. Griswold after he received his Christmas bonus: a one-year subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club.

And because the sarcastic use of movie quotes is our sibling love language. We’ve sort of become infamous for it. I remember sitting in my parents’ living room one summer afternoon. Dustin and Scott were both visiting from Colorado, and their friend Kurt had come along for the ride. There’s something that happens in rooms full of adult siblings sometimes—a regression. Suddenly, you’re a teenager again, giving your sibling crap like it’s your job. (Because let’s face it; it is.)

I don’t remember the specifics. But it probably involved Scott saying he’d handle the driving on some night-out adventure, and Dustin quoting Weird Science: “He don’t even have his license, Lisa!” Which would naturally send us off on a Weird Science quoting spree: “How about a nice, greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?” “Why do you have to be such a wanker?”

Anyone outside that Circle of Sibs might be utterly baffled. And, as I remember, Kurt was. He looked from one sib to another and muttered, “You guys really are related.” He had no idea we’d grown up watching 80s movies on repeat because we visited our grandparents’ house every weekend and Gramps had cable.

That’s the thing about a shared language. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone outside the circle. It just has to work inside it. Most families seem to have one, whether they know it or not. Maybe yours is movie quotes, too. Maybe it’s a specific song you all sing badly on purpose. Maybe it’s a running joke that’s been running so long nobody remembers where it started. Maybe it’s the way you all use a particular word wrong, on purpose, because someone mispronounced it once in 1987 and it stuck. (A little something the Grammar Girl podcast devotes a regular segment called “familects” to, by the way!)

The point isn’t the quote or the joke or the word. The point is that using it means I know you. I’ve been paying attention. You’re my people.

Being seen and understood really is the gift that keeps on giving. Twelve jars of jelly in lieu of a bonus, though? Not so much.

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With hope and love,

Karen