“Yeah? Well, I had sex with your wife.”
Smug, pat answers, prepped to be delivered without ever listening to a word you have to say only reinforces one thing: You’ve let an Asshole waste your time.
It almost makes me wonder if as a reply you can tap your watch and say,
“Sorry, but its Happy Hour and you’re Really an Asshole. sad look …Bye…!”
“I want my two dollars…!”
- -Better Off Dead, 1985*
Irv Weinstein was probably not your best ambassador.
Declan
My mother isn’t a whore. YOUR mother, on the other hand…
(Lighten up, Francis)
And this is the same shit that made me slap the shit out of people in my anger days.
That shitwad director who made clerks, I blame him. For some reason, if I say Philadelphia instead of Jersey, they think I’m an heir to something. I grew up in Southern New Jersey. We never had toxic waste wash up on shore, was surrounded by woods, fields of corn and tomatoes, gas-powered street lights, private schools, an hour from the beach, NO robberies within 20 miles for over 20 years, 20 minutes from the city and somehow this all sucks to other people.
I currently live in the San Fernando valley in California. Air sucks, traffic sucks, people are more defensive than the Seahawks for no reason, higher taxes, higher gas prices, a rape every ten blocks every day, racist and stupid ass cops-- every fucking one of them–, water shortage, the native girls are absolutely butt fugly, a three hour ride to the closest beach (22 miles), and this is supposed to be better?? My birthplace Park Ridge, Illinois, beats this setup. GAH!
There’s only two things out west that are better-- weather and no fat-ass governor.
I’m occasionally tempted to say it as a joke, but I usually hold my tongue.
However, once a colleague of mine from Haiti said she was going to move to Riverside, because the rest of her family was relocating there. Without thinking at all I blurted out, “I’m sorry,” not to be funny, but out of sincere sympathy.
Then she started to freak out, because she knew nothing about the place, and I felt awful. “You said, ‘Lakeside,’ right? No? Oh, it’s Riverside? Riverside’s okay. I thought you said Lakeside–now Lakeside, that’s one place you don’t want to live.”
If they go with ‘I’m sorry to hear that’, look puzzled and say ‘Sorry for what’? Then push them to explain what they mean. Intimate you have never considered where you live as being ‘undesireable’, and thank them for the insight provided. Be sincere (not sarcastic).
After about 20 secs, the other person will start explaining what’s great about where you live. Just say ‘Oh, I know that! Tell me more about the bad stuff’.
Ugh, this reminds me of when I met someone at a party and asked her where she was from.
“Cleveland.”
To which I smiled and said, “Awesome! I’m from Ohio, too! It’s always nice to meet another Buckeye.”
“Oh? What part of Ohio are you from?”
“West Central, farm country.”
“EEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”
:rolleyes:
While I don’t get all angry when people say it, the fact is that it’s rude to say to someone when you don’t even know them. It really serves no other purpose than to be smug, IMO. I mean really, what other point is there to that?
Some people mentioned Detroit. I’ve heard not nice things about it, but I still wouldn’t say that. I’d be more inclined to say: Detroit? What’s your favorite place to hang out? (Or something similar). Then if they tell you they think it’s a cesspool,knock yourself out with the jokes.
Aussies who hail from, or worse have moved to Canberra are generally regarded with sympathy.
Lighten up Francis is another tired phrase that you didn’t create.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Been fending off stupid Cleveland jokes for my whole lifetime. Hey, ignoramuses, Cleveland rocks. A columnist for the Plain Dealer wrote a book about Cleveland titled The Best-Kept Secret. It made me feel good about being a Clevelander and I read and re-read that book until the dust jacket wore off.
seodoa, I must apologize for my homegirl’s inexcusable rudeness. I recognize the syndrome well—when your people have been roundly dumped on for so long, in reaction you look for someone else to dump on, as though that would relieve the pain (it doesn’t). I always insist that because of its Connecticut Western Reserve history and culture, Cleveland is a place apart from the rest of Ohio. However, I like the rest of Ohio* and would not think of insulting it.
*Except for Akron…heh
Once I met a fellow who told me he came from Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati—and then immediately took great pains to stress that he was “not from Covington!!” As though Covington had cooties or something. But I have never been able to find out what was supposedly so wretched about Covington. For all I can see from the outside, it appears to be as normal and ordinary a town as any, not distinguished by anything bad. 
Still no idea what the guy meant by that.
Reply: “You should try to be funny, instead of that”
Or: “Humor is one part timing and the other part unexpectedness. What’s missing here?”
Or more directly: “The Germans have a word, “Fremdschäme”, which means that a person is vicariously embarrassed for a stranger’s misstep. Like I am, for that attempt at humor.”
Frankly, I cringe when I see people using tired jokes. It’s like the whole “Just don’t call me late for dinner” thing when being introduced by name. I love humor, I just hate it when a person thinks that they use it like a stock catchphrase on a 30 year old sitcom.
Or when the person gives you the “I’m sorry” line you can say “you need to lose weight.” When he seems stunned, you can say, “oh, I’m sorry. I thought we were just insulting each other for no reason.”
You blame this on Kevin Smith, whose entire career might be fairly described as a love letter to the New Jersey shore?
Absolutely. Nobody ever insulted New Jersey before Clerks.
Some people are not as good at spontaneous humor as others. Dumb jokes break the ice. People who are truly put off by the “I’m sorry” joke, or other ancient rejoinders - chill out.
This. I’m honestly surprised that some people would take such umbrage at a dumb joke. If you are that defensive of your hometown that a passing comment (most likely not intended to be literal) would cause you to respond with a personal insult, then you might need to look at why you are so upset. (And if it is because it isn’t an original joke or statement, then your life must be a living hell because original content is rarely generated)
And, unless you are directly responsible for your town or city, I find it difficult to be personally offended by being told “I’m sorry” (especially in a joking manner) about where you are born.
On another note, I went to college in New Jersey, and I have to say that, outside of Newark and Trenton, it’s actually quite beautiful. Whenever I would visit back home, or even now, and I tell people I went to college out there, I’d receive a statement akin to “I’m sorry” or something of the ilk. Instead of calling them fat, punching them in the balls, etc., I simply responded that, while there are a few areas that definitely need improvement, the rest of the state is beautiful, green and lush.
I’m sorry that’s so hard for others to do / understand.
It’s not that the joke is offensive, it’s just that it is a signal that I am in the presence of a boor and since it usually comes so early in the first meeting with said boor, it is a marker that I will be in for a tedious and long interaction.
If they are from New Jersey, you offer your deepest sympathy ------- slowly and using simple words. 
PA? Birthplace of Lee Iacocca, W. C. Fields, and where “Bonehead” was coined and put into common usage as people from the next town over…? cue smiley