Smack

I thoroughly enjoyed Love's Labour's Lost, including (and maybe especially) the scene where the girls spend a couple of minutes hurling creative and hilarious insults at each other. But then the insults stopped; they applauded each other for their witty comments; and they went back to discussing the matters at hand.

I remember my daughter being asked by an onlooker if she and Coral and Marie liked each other. Well, those three are best of buddies, but they had just spent a couple of minutes in that kind of sarcastic wordplay. The onlooker thought it was a sign of a problem in their relationship. Nope. It was play.

I am not offended by sarcasm and those kinds of insults.

But smack-talk that goes on for more than five minutes gets a little wearing. Smack-talk that goes on for hours without let-up makes me livid. When a person cannot seem to discuss books or political events or gardening or movies or style or theology or thoughts of any sort, but can only engage in smack-talk, you begin to wonder about whether there's anything inside him that's worth knowing. Where is there any kindness? Where's the compassion? Where's the interest?