A is for Air-quotes

January 16th, 2012 in Day to Day by Me1 Comment

Note: This post is being written through a lens of vodka. It’s supposed to help Me forget about My student loan payments that are just now coming due as well as Her student loan payments that We now have to take over from Her parents who’ve been amazingly generous for paying on them and it’s not working. But one drink equals $10,000, so I’ve only got a handful to go.

With Him being nearly 8 years old (this March) We’ve seen Our share of phases. He’s been through the “say ‘holy shit’ repeatedly because I know I shouldn’t” phase. He’s well into the “can I tell you a joke [that's so bad you won't want to laugh but you'll force yourself to because you don't know what else to do]?” phase. And He’s working on eye rolling while already being well on His way to tackling the fine art of sarcasm. We’ve laughed Our way through all of it (with the exception of some of the eye rolling and sarcasm because We’re hypocritical . . . and if you’re going to do it, do it right!) because there’s not much else you can do about it.

So We’re doing the same with the air-quotes. Air-quotes for everything. The best thing about these is that He uses them incorrectly. The way he says it works, the placement doesn’t.

“Do you need to go to the ‘sto-ore’?”

“Don’t forget you ‘wal-let’.”

“Can I have some “mon-ney’?”

And He does the quotes in some sort of slow rhythm with the words, like he actually knows what He’s doing. And He doesn’t. So then we try and tell Him how to properly use air quotes but how the hell do you explain that? So We’re all at the table trying to eat with one hand while air-quoting with the other two saying things like “you only use them when . . . come on, Hun, help me out, when . . .” and “yeah, you have to say something like . . .” Then We can’t think of anything so we just say you have to use them when it’s funny. But that’s what He’s doing because somehow “wal-let” is funny to a 7 year old.

But this is Our fault in the end. He’s trying to be witty (I think?) and We can’t even tell Him how to do it properly. So I go to Wikipedia for help and I leave with less hope than I started with because they took a simple, obnoxious gesture, and slaughtered it with an explanation. Then they round it out with this: “Air quotes are often used to express satire, sarcasm, irony or euphemism, and are analogous to scare quotes in print.”

So that settles it. We’ll just tell Him to only use them when He’s feeling satirical or ironic. Can’t figure that out? Then don’t abuse the air-quotes, kid. Some things are only for adults. Just like vodka.