Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, And It's Ruining Our Conversation

"Honey, the soles of my shoes are made of sheepskin. I can't get them wet, so come pick me up right away." Just as I send a WhatsApp message to my wife, Cora Harden, a barrage of floating comments explodes in front of me in the downpour. "I really can't stand a high-maintenance second male lead like Allen Brandt. Cora, the female lead, is a billionaire CEO, and yet she lets him boss her around like a lapdog." "The male lead has already joined the company. Once Cora sees how sweet and thoughtful he is, she's dumping that loser Allen for good." "This is hilarious. After the divorce, Allen can't do anything, so he'll end up as some cheap thirst-trap live streamer." Staring at the screen of venomous insults, I clench my fists in anger. Just then, Cora arrives with an umbrella, half of her bespoke dress soaked from the rain. Noticing my whitened knuckles, she pauses for a moment, then timidly tugs at my sleeve. "Sorry, darling. If I had driven any faster, I would have been speeding."

At 11:00 pm, I've just locked my car and am about to walk away when rows of bright red comments appear right in front of my eyes. "Warning! Your husband, whom you're still in a 30-day cooling-off period with, wants to kidnap you! He'll take nudes of you while livestreaming the entire process before mutilating you into chunks and flushing you down the sewers!" "Well, this gold digger keeps swindling money from her husband while toying with his feelings relentlessly. Now, she even wants a portion of his assets by getting a divorce from him. Serves her right for being a target of revenge!" I'm left feeling shell-shocked. After all, I'm single as a Pringle. How the heck did I even have a husband, to begin with?

Inside the mediation room at the police station, my passenger looked disheveled with messy hair and rumpled clothes. She cried as she complained to the police officer, “Sir, it’s him! The Grab driver had bad intentions! He even tried to harass me! “People like him should be put in jail! And I want compensation for the emotional distress he caused me!” Right after she finished speaking, she slumped down on the floor and threw a tantrum. I could not believe someone could be this shameless. All I did was tell her not to smoke in the car, and she falsely accused me of harassing her. On top of it, I was a woman too! It was just that I usually dressed less femininely. How could I possibly have harassed her?

There wasn't a package pickup station anywhere in our apartment complex. So out of goodwill, I turned my storage room into a pickup station. I took in packages, organized shelves, labeled everything, and stayed up late every night waiting for people to pick up their deliveries. Then one day, a resident showed up at my door and accused me of stealing her $3,000 gold necklace. "You signed for the delivery. Now it's gone. You had to have opened the package and swapped it out." Residents crowded the hallway, whispering behind my back. Not one person defended me. My stomach dropped. They were the ones complaining about packages getting stolen off their doorsteps. I was the one helping them. But over one baseless accusation, they turned on me instantly. I didn't argue. I just sent a message in the group chat: [Notice: Effective immediately, the One-Penny Pickup Station is officially closed. I will no longer accept, store, or manage packages for residents. Please make other pickup arrangements going forward.]

My son, Archie Burton, has a bad habit of being painfully honest. I ask him, "Am I handsome?" "To be honest, Dad," he says, "you're the ugliest dad in the whole kindergarten." My mother-in-law tears into me for being a spendthrift after I buy Archie an expensive backpack, and I ask him how he feels about it. "Honestly," he says, "it makes me happy to watch you get chewed out." My wife asks him jokingly if he'll take care of me when I get old. "No way am I looking after him," he says. "When he gets old, he should just die." My heart sinks. But Archie just smiles. "I'm only telling the truth!" Then the police come by to conduct a census check and ask him a few simple questions. He is brutally honest as usual. Only this time, he regrets it for the rest of his life.

On my way to work, I came across a livestream from an influencer who posted about her relationship, tagged at my company’s location. She was talking about her office romance with the CEO of a major corporation. But wasn’t the CEO of her company my husband? I clicked on her profile and saw that it was full of wedding-prep posts. The man never showed his face, but his build looked almost exactly like my husband’s. So I left a comment in the livestream: “I heard the CEO of Gibson Corporation has been married for a long time. So what does that make you...?” The streamer muted me, then instantly burst into tears. “The internet isn’t lawless. If you keep spreading rumors and calling me a mistress, I’m calling the police.” Her fans immediately swarmed me. “You’re probably the other woman yourself. That’s why your mind went there.” “I checked her profile. She’s some woman in her thirties. She’s obviously jealous because the streamer is young, pretty, and has a rich, powerful boyfriend who dotes on her.” “The account’s brand new. She’s obviously just a troll.” I tried to say more, only to realize I had already been kicked out of the livestream, and my account had been reported until I couldn’t even log back in. I stared at the proof of our marriage in the drawer for a long moment. Then I raised my hand and smacked my sleeping husband awake. “Exactly how many wives are you planning to have?”