Snarky

Snarky, one of my most favorite words, is defined as crotchety or snappish.  Sarcastic and irreverent are words also used to describe snarky.  But are they words that I would use to describe myself?
Well, that is where it gets tricky, but I don't think of myself as crotchety.  In a few years I plan to be very crotchety.  I plan to be the poster child of crotchety.  I plan to load my cart up with crotchety and push it slowly around the store, stopping frequently in the card aisle and in the candy aisle.  In both, I will lament about the high prices of everything, will buy the generic cards that come in the mixed box and will browse for candy that hasn't been made in twenty years.  I will then push my cart to the make up aisle and gasp at the vulgar colors of nail polish, forgetting that I wore those colors during my youth. 
Snappish?  Me?  I don't think so.  I flip out from time to time, but I don't think that I am ever snappish.  Oh, wait, snappish is what I am right before someone continues to piss me off and I then I just move up to bitchy.  Snappish is kind of like that point in a cat fight where the paw is drawn and the ears are back.  I am frequently snappish.
But sarcastic?  Never.  I cannot think of one single moment where I have been sarcastic or irreverent.  Sometimes I am so reverent that I think I will find my photo in my saints book.  Ok, not my photo but a Byzantine tile likeness of me. 
Anyway, back to me being snarky.  I am, of course.  I don't know how to not be snarky.  I have tried.  I can keep my thoughts to myself, but it is in my thoughts that the snarky runs wild.  And sometimes they do escape out my mouth and I hurt feelings or I surprise innocent bystanders or I just sound like a bitch.
But there are the times when I am really and truly being nice.  The times when I mean the kind words I say.  The times when I want to be helpful and gentle and, well, not snarky.  But no one seems to believe me.  I suppose that's my own doing.  As I meet new people, I try to keep the snarky in check, just a little, so they like me before they really know me.  That's tricky, not snarky.
Like most Snarks, I have developed this habit to protect my insecurities.  It's hard to get hurt if I'm the one deflecting all the insults back out into the masses.  It is hard to take that good long look in the mirror if I am too busy looking at everyone else.  That's a little too deep for a Thursday evening.  And I am a little too realistic to buy into that particular bag of blah blah blah!  Nowadays, I am snarky because I am good at it.  And I don't really think I could change now.  What is it that Goethe says?  " "I call architecture frozen music."  No, not that, though he does say that.  What an odd thing to say, that's like me saying "I call Popsicles frozen kool aid" and people quoting me and shit.  Anyway, Goethe says  "If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise."

 

By the by, if I were a saint, which isn't to say that I won't be someday, I would like to be the patron saint of snarky people.  My medal would be of me snickering...