Sarcasm. Ahhh, those bitter words that often come from bitter people. Words that mean something entirely different than their original intentions. It only seems appropriate, that upon my research of the topic (i.e. I googled it) I came upon the following article:
Israeli psychologists draw conclusions from how brain-damaged people comprehend sarcasm – or not
Seeing as my story involves two Israelis (one, myself--NOT brain-damaged, and another an extremely rude clerk--quite certainly brain-damaged), I was a bit amused. The article basically indicates that there is an "anatomy of sarcasm" and someone who has had brain damage in the part of the brain that allows one to understand sarcasm, well, doesn't understand it.
Luckily, despite the numerous times I've been dropped on, hit on, and fallen on my head (if you're interested, I have stories that involve a crow bar, a dunking booth, and sports balls of numerous kinds), at this stage, I do not have brain damage.
And therefore, I was perfectly capable of understanding the sarcasm from the Evil Clerk at the Hebrew University Student Union. I won't go into all the details, but the punchline of the story involves Evil Clerk saying to me, "I told you that you are in the right office, sweetie (read: moron)." Well, I am sweet, but since my "anatomy of sarcasm" was functioning properly, I caught on quite quickly that she did not really think that I am sweet.
And so, figuring that she already had me labeled (wrongly, by the way), I proved her point, and told her, "Excuse me, there's no need to talk to me that way," which probably didn't affect her conscience at all seeing that she is an Evil Clerk.
But I felt better, and since the world revolves around me, that's all that matters (sarcasm).
